Anamchara (Soul-mate)
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: this is a bleach/avengers crossover with a fem ichigoxbucky pairing. Bucky had finally gotten his life back on track and was anxious to begin the next step. Settling down. She was the gorgeous gal that he had had his eyes on for a while. She was a freaking cat trainer. And he loved that about her.
1. Chapter 1

**This is going to be another Avengers/Bleach crossover with fem Ichigo. **

**Not one hundred percent sure how it's going to go or if there will be any pairings. But if there are any pairings later on then it might be a Bucky/Ichigo depending on how things go. **

**Fluff will abound as well as humor. **

**Enjoy. **

**My next Avengers/Bleach crossover will either be The Runner- a possible soulmate or Alpha/omega story. Or an arranged marriage fic with Bucky wanting to settle down and deciding to get himself a mail order bride.**

* * *

He'd seen her around the park several times before.

In truth she was a somewhat difficult person to miss for various reasons. All of which he found simply enthralling even on the worst of his days and nights. Today- or rather this morning- she had brought her little furry friends with her, _again_.

Each one of the difficult little felines was trussed up in a tiny harness with a nice 'sturdy' chain leash attached to it, looking none too pleased to have been brought outside their nice cozy home. Even on a nice day like this one, if their comically little evil eyed glares in her direction were any indication at all.

At the moment, she and the fur balls were less than thirty feet away from where he had parked his ass on the wooden bench, meaning that he had a more than nice view of the upcoming train wreck as it would happen.

After all, she had been attempting to train those damned cats for almost a month now and the last time she had brought them to the park, one had managed to climb a tree while the others had somehow managed to trip her and get their leashes around her neck while they had tried to make a run for..._whatever_. Freedom, he guessed- in every direction.

It had been a beyond _hysterical_ spectacle and if nothing else, he could respect the dame for easily being insane enough not to give up while she was ahead.

So here he was, just watching the lot of them and trying to hide his mirth behind one of his hands as she started talking to the felines like Steve tended to talk to the rest of his team before missions.

Like a general talking to her troops.

"Okay my furry little darlings-" Well okay maybe not totally like Steve talked to his team. Bucky was more than a hundred percent sure that if Steve had ever referred to _any_ of his teammates as his 'furry little darlings' someone would have laid him out flat. Possibly Stark or Natasha.

Or maybe both all at once, it was always hard to say with those two.

"This is what is going to happen," _Uh-oh_. He thought as he watched the felines flatten their ears back against their little heads. "I am finally going to train you," There was a series of angry growls from the cats. Apparently they weren't happy with the dame's little declaration. "You will follow my orders to the letter or none of you will get any wet food-" The cats all fell oddly silent for a moment and exchanged uneasy looks with each other as the dame smirked down at their shell shocked little faces.

Bucky snorted quietly and had to resort to biting his bottom lip when the dame turned her head in his direction to look at him.

Not wanting her to know that he was watching her and grow upset or self conscious, he made quick work of looking away and pretending to see something interesting in a tree about fifty or so yards away to throw off any suspicion that she may have had about him watching her and subtly studied her as she started her training.

For someone trying to train creatures as difficult as a group of cats, her methods weren't terrible.

She was firm yet gentle with them. Giving them praise when it was deserved, and laughed at each of some of the more stubborn one's antics when they decided that they had had enough and simply flopped over on the ground and played dead. Despite the obvious, irritated twitching of their tails.

As well as giving them a few treats here and there until she deemed their training over with and carefully collected them all in a medium sized black and azure blue back pack and zipped them up in it. Leaving only a sliver of the zipper open just in case they got curious and decided to poke their little heads through and then gently slipped said pack up onto her shoulders and started to leave when he caught her gaze and held it for a few seconds by accident.

Shifting uncomfortably under her gaze, he couldn't help but think that she had the _prettiest_ eerie neon blue colored eyes that he'd ever seen before in his life. Not quite the same blue as Stevie's, but no less breathtaking.

And in that instant that their eyes met, he felt an odd feeling surge forth within him. And he just _knew_...that little miss cat whisperer was his. Utterly and totally _irrevocably_ his.

His best gal. His _anamchara_.

His soul mate.

She looked away after a heartbeat or so, giving him enough time to collect his scattered thoughts enough to turn his head and watch her as she walked away.

Her long, near waist length strawberry blond-ish orange hued hair barely hiding her cute little butt from his gaze as he tilted his head slightly to the side in silent perusal of her.

Damn she had some gorgeous, long fucking legs. He thought to himself with a wolfish grin as he slowly stood up and decided to...take a walk before his dick decided to give him some trouble.

After all, how embarrassing was it to have to adjust yourself in public while thinking about...uh..._stuff_? Especially since women and children tended to be everywhere. Why the last time he'd adjusted himself in public, Stevie had been with him, and had been so _horrified_ that he'd actually pushed him in front of a car!

Besides, he couldn't exactly afford to have dick issues right now. He had things that he needed to do. Things like...figure out how he was going to approach his foreign beauty and talk to her. Her likes, dislikes- was she a flower and dancing kind of dame? Oh god let her be a flower and dancing kind of dame!

It would make wooing her so much easier if she was.

When he finally went to ask her out, he could hand her some nice flowers and ask her to go dancing with him. Easy peasy.

Then again what if she wasn't a flower or dancing kind of dame? What if she liked motorcycles? If that was the case, he'd be bartering his firstborn just to get Stevie to let him borrow his vintage bike. Come to think of it, maybe he should go and...talk to Stevie so that he didn't decide to step in and ruin things for him.

Yeah...


	2. Chapter 2

Upon returning to the tower, the first thing that he did was attempt to track Steve down. However his punk was a slippery bastard and nearly as elusive as Natasha tended to be sometimes.

So he was unable to find him immediately.

Either because he was out doing something, training at the old building where he used to train before becoming an Avenger- or he was just plain on a mission and wouldn't be back for a while.

Which was how Bucky wound up deciding to take matters into his own hands. _Tomorrow_.

Tomorrow would be a day that lived in infamy. Either as the day he finally managed to pin his soul mate down or as the day...she possibly laughed in his face and told him to fuck off.

Groaning he flopped himself face down on the couch in the main communal area of Avengers tower, missing the fact that he'd just flopped himself face down in a startled Banner's lap.

Something that he knew would cause all kinds of teasing later on from Stark and that damned shit bird Clint. But for the moment, he was too busy lamenting. So he didn't care..._much_.

Bruce must have known that something was off with him, because once he got over his initial reaction to having a lap full of super soldier, he just awkwardly patted Bucky on the back in what he hoped was a soothing manner and looked around to make sure that neither Tony nor Clint were hanging around watching the poor man with barely contained glee.

"So...what's up?" Bruce finally managed to ask him hesitantly after a few minutes of awkward and uncomfortable back pats.

"Found my soulmate." Bucky muttered, still face down in his lap. Though he did turn his head so that he wouldn't accidentally wind up with a particular part of Bruce's anatomy anywhere near his mouth. Thank god.

"Wow, really?" Bruce said in a weird excited and awed tone before calming himself enough to say. "She must really be something."

"She is." Bucky muttered.

"So, if you don't mind my asking, what does she do?" Bruce asked, this time more out of curiosity than anything. I mean, any gal that caught the former Winter Soldier's eye had to do something cool, right?

Bucky let out a dreamy sounding sigh before proudly announcing, "She trains cats."

Bruce cocked his head and wondered if maybe he had misheard him and blurted out in a confused tone, "Pardon?"

"She trains cats. Furry, domestic, evil, manipulative, difficult little maniacs."

"And you..._like_ this?"

"Oh my god Bruce watching her train them is fucking _hilarious_," Bucky said, this time finally raising his head up off of the man's lap so that he could give him the most overjoyed grin that Bruce had ever seen on anyone person before. "Those furry little bastard have tried to kill her several times and she still tries to train them. It's awesome! I recorded some stuff on my phone, wanna see?"

"Sure. Let's see you're...cat trainer in action."

Bucky made an weird, excited sound and quickly bolted, eliciting a indignant squawk form the man as the super soldier settled on the couch next to him with his cell phone out, and quietly pulled up the videos that he'd managed to record and held it out for Bruce to see.

The first thing that Bruce noticed in wry amusement, was the woman herself. She was stunningly lovely for someone with such an exotic appearance. Japanese American from the looks of her, young probably between twenty and twenty two years old, leggy, a petite build with a nice curvy figure.

It was no wonder Bucky liked her.

Even the history books stated more than once that the man had a thing for only the most beautiful women.

Bruce wasn't sure if he felt jealous or not that Bucky had his eye on this particular young lady. But after watching almost an hour in a half's worth of cat training video's, he decided that he liked her too. Just in a more platonic sense.

One thing was for sure, if Bucky did manage to somehow hook up with her- he'd have to love the little beasts that she trained otherwise their relationship wouldn't last for long. Especially since she seemed like the sort of woman that loved kitty cat kisses and kitty cat scritches and- bah, he needed to escape before he began to de evolve into a cat lover himself.

He was fairly certain that Tony wouldn't appreciate him going out and picking up cats to cuddle with. Especially given how much damage their claws can do.

"Well, good luck on talking to your lovely cat trainer...I...gotta go now. Science beckons." Bruce said awkwardly as he gently removed Bucky from his personal space and quickly jumped up from the couch and fled as fast as he could.

* * *

Several blocks away-

Ichigo walked into her apartment with her hands and back loaded down with vicious little monsters/groceries that said vicious little monsters were attempting to escape their carrier on her back to get at. She suspected that they could smell the sandwich meats, milk, and other things in the paper bags that she carried.

The little furballs had already scratched the back of her neck and shoulders four frigging times in their attempt to get at her food and stuff.

_Crazy little things._ She thought in fond irritation.

It had been almost four years since she had moved to New York after the Winter War had taken place. Her life as a Soul Reaper easily taking the backseat to a normal life ever since everything had finally settled.

She had miraculously managed to graduated from high school with the best grades of her class. Gotten herself a scholarship from New York University- which is where she had been going to school up until about six months ago when she'd finally gotten her degree in business management.

After which she had started working several nice relaxing jobs from home.

One was acting as a ghost writer- not going to lie, the job was a hassle sometimes. The clients she sometimes got stuck with could be such diva's. She met three in person to go over some work related stuff, and had _punched_ at least two of them for getting handsy with her while she was trying to be professional.

However the job payed well. Very, _very_ well.

Her last pay check had been close to two hundred thousand and eight hundred and ninety bucks. Which was awesome since a good portion of that was used to pay her rent, feed her, pay for her utilities, and support her other job.

A work at home jewelry designer/maker. Which in the past three years had branched out to flower arranging, scented candle making, embroidery, painting and scented lotion and soap making.

She literally made _millions_ selling everything both in her shop a few blocks away, and online.

Which was great since her dad had hit some money trouble a few months back due to the clinic not having any patients recently, and she'd been sending money home for him and her sisters to use to pay the bills, keep the clinic running and also pay for her twin sister's college educations.

Setting her groceries down on the island in her kitchen, she heard a very distinct and morose sounding meow from the carrier on her back and felt herself start to laugh. _Stupid cat_, she thought in amusement as the same cat let out another three sullen sounding meows of complaint.

The sounds translating to something along the lines of, 'Hey, hey, let me out. I smell food.' or 'Hey, get me out of here already, these other kitties are crazy! Hey, hey are you even listening to me?! Hey- human pay attention! Hey!'

"Okay, okay, I'll let you out. Just gimme a minute to put some thing away."

"Meeeowww!"

"Oh come on, you know the drill. Suck it up and be a man." She teased as she dug out the meats and set her dinner for later in the fridge before then placing everything else in the freezer for safe keeping. After all, she couldn't trust her fuzzy little friend's at all.

Contrary to what people tended to be led to believe by her furry little babies- they had absolutely no control whatsoever once her back was turned. And would waste no time at all in face planting themselves in her sandwich meats, or her other food stuff in general. Hell not even her veggies were safe around them!

The last time she'd made a salad to eat, Mr. Sullen Meower, had decided to flop his not-so-little self right down in her salad bowl inbetween bites.

He'd run through her apartment when she finally yelled at him, covered in buttermilk ranch salad dressing. With a nice side of red onions, cherry tomatoes, cucumber bits, and shredded cheese clinging to his long furred little butt.

"Meeeeooooooooow, pht!"

"Did you just hiss at me?" She asked in an incredulous tone.

"Pht!"

"Those are fighting hisses baby boy."

"Pht! Pht!"

"Okay, have it you're way." She said as she finally finished putting her perishables up before lifting her hands up to the pack on her back, and gently removing it and then unzipped it to let her sullen little prince and his baby sister out since they were the only ones left in the carrier anyways.

She had dropped the other little beasts off before going shopping.

The second that she opened the bag, her pitch black little terror came storming out just as quickly as his little legs could carry him right into the kitchen, over to the fridge, where he planted himself directly in front of it and stared perturbed up at it and meowed at her again, _loudly_ and insistently.

Wanting her to open the fridge for him otherwise he would just perish on the spot.

She snorted in amusement at his antics and shook her head and muttered, "Yeah. No." As her boy's baby sister slowly meandered out of the bag and flopped herself down across her lap and demanded belly rubs from her before she'd ever be able to do anything else even remotely productive.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky didn't sleep a wink that night.

He was simply too damned nervous to bother. Instead he spent several hours making a fool of himself in front of a mirror, rehearsing what he would do and say to his gal when he saw her again.

He had already decided to give her flowers. And had spent more than two in a half hours carefully picking some out online and placing an order for an arrangement that he would pick up from a local florist shop, first thing in the morning. He'd even gone through both his and Steve's closet several times and already picked out the nicest set of clothing that he could find too.

Since dating had changed significantly since the forties, he managed to luck out with a cream colored long sleeved cotton shirt, some nice pants, and- he'd even taken the time to shine up a pair of his nicest leather shoes.

And then he had shined a few pairs of Steve's because he was all but literally _dying_ of nervousness and if his little punk was going to be his wingman at one point or another then his damned shoes needed to be shiny so that he could make a good impression on his gal!

After that, he'd left the tower for a little bit to go and get himself something to eat- and other things- like gifts for his girl. Nothing too big, flashy or terrible. But...small things that women generally seemed to like.

Perfumes, scented lotions, and soaps. Just small things to spoil her without overwhelming her.

Although he had found several pretty nice peices of jewelry. Cheapish, but nice nevertheless. He simply hadn't bothered to buy any because he had to actually be dating first. Contrary to popular belief, pearls _weren't_ his best friends.

Though he would admit that the nice white, opalescent ones would look wonderful on his gal. So would the pastel pink ones for that matter.

Once he was back at the tower, he ate his dinner quietly while staring blankly at his large plasma TV. Never really noticing until half way through his food that the stupid thing wasn't even on.

After that he'd gone straight to bed, deciding that he'd had enough and done enough, for the day.

Still, he'd been unable to sleep at all. And for once it wasn't nightmares that kept him wide awake. He thought he'd managed to maybe close his eyes for like ten minutes, but then he'd had some sort of weird, dream/vision thing of him and his gal with five kids- and that certainly managed to wake him from his ten minute semi-doze.

After that, he'd spent the rest of the night in the gym destroying some stuff that he just _knew_ Tony was going to yell at him for.

Once the clock on the gym wall chimed seven thirty in the morning, Bucky finally left the gym to go and get cleaned up and dressed for his day.

And since he had at least until nine to get to the park, then he was able to waste almost an hour in the shower getting himself all nice and squeaky clean. Once he was done with that, he dried off, combed his hair (and wondered if he should slick it back with some gel, but then decided not to since it made him look like he was in the mafia) and then dressed himself and put on his shoes and laced them up. After he was finished tying them, he made a beeline for the door, making sure to grab his keys and wallet before he stepped out of his apartment.

It took him almost ten minutes just to get to the ground floor of the tower, and by then his anxiety had spiked significantly as he closed his eyes and said a silent little prayer that things would go well for him today.

After all, after seventy years of brainwashing, being forced to kill and such- didn't he deserve to finally pick up his life where he left off and finally be happy?

* * *

Ichigo had just finished pulling a mostly all nighter since she had been up and working on several things since about three am. Which was around the time she'd finally started to get ready for bed after her shower, only to receive an email from one of her clients demanding that she rework three chapter's to his satisfaction.

Despite the fact that there had been absolutely nothing wrong with the first four versions that she'd sent him.

She'd just sent him the newest versions of the chapters he'd demanded with a little note attached that said that just because she wasn't going to date/fall into his bed like other women- didn't give him a right to act like an asshole to her. And at the bottom of the note had been a suggestion that he find someone else to work with, she was done with him.

He'd tried to coax her into going out with him. Then when that didn't work he tried to manipulate and bully her. Finally deciding that since playing nice wouldn't work with her, then he'd try threatening her with legal action.

Ichigo merely flashed a feral little smile at her laptop's screen as she read his latest message before telling him to go ahead.

He'd just be laughed out of court once she showed the judge his messages to her.

That had shut him up quick.

And now she was not only free of him, and his damn harassment, but she was also free of her present ghost writing work entirely. Which meant that she would have a little bit of extra time on her hands for now.

And since she didn't have to train her fuzzy little terrors for the next few days or so... She supposed that going out by herself and meandering around and getting some sun wasn't such a bad idea.

She could just spend the day out, relaxing, checking local craft shops and boutiques for possible new stuff to work with. Then maybe eat out for brunch or lunch, maybe pick up something for dinner depending on how long she was out. But first...she really needed to get dressed!

She started to close her computer when she hear the soft dinging sound, indicating that she had a new message in her email inbox. She was tempted to ignore it, just in case it was the jerk again with more threats. But in the end decided to check it anyways.

It was from her dad.

And the message read.

**Ichigo! When are you going to get married and give me grandkids?! **

Growling in annoyance, she slammed her laptop closed and flung it across the room where it hit the wall with a loud _**Crack**_ and broke. "Aw dammit," She muttered to herself as she glared at the broken pieces. "Now I need a new computer again."

It was a good thing that she was going out, otherwise she'd be screwed.

Getting up from the couch she huffed a little bit as she walked back to her bedroom and gently closed the door so that she could get dressed without any interruptions.

Once she was done, she stepped out of her bedroom, and was greeted by her furry babies. Both of whom meowed at her cutely and then turned and made a beeline for the kitchen and their water dish. Rolling her eyes, she walked along behind them and grabbed a bottle of water off of the counter and opened it so that she could give them their water before she then went to pick up her broken computer before one of them decided to eat something that they shouldn't.

Once she was done picking up the broken pieces of her former computer, she then slipped on some small heeled ankle boots and grabbed her wallet and keys and after telling the cats not to destroy the place, left.

* * *

Bucky was waiting nervously in the park for his gal to show up for maybe twenty minutes. Which to him, felt like far longer than an hour due to his nervousness when she finally showed up. This time she was alone, with no tiny little terrors in tow.

Which was good. It meant that once he approached her he would have her complete and total undivided attention.

Taking a few moments to watch her, he looked her over, noting that she was dressed nice today. She was wearing a little bit of make-up, some lightly colored eye shadow, some blush and lip gloss. Her long wild looking hair had been tamed, and pulled up into a hightop ponytail with a few of the longer strands falling down around her ears and shoulders, framing her face in a fetching manner.

Her clothing was a nice sapphire colored sweater dress with a black leather belt, that fell almost to her knees with a pair of skin tight black leggings and matching small heeled ankle boots.

_Goddamn_ she looked nice.

Taking a deep breath, he finally managed to gather up his courage and slowly got to his feet, making sure to grab the flowers that he'd special ordered for her and slowly wandered over to her and started to lift his hand to tap her on the shoulder when she suddenly turned her head and looked right at him, causing him to freeze up.

Oh god! Her eyes- they were much prettier up close. So much so that he found himself floundering for words.

She turned to face him fully and he almost got on his knees before her and whined. He was the former Winter's Soldier, world class assassin extraordinaire- _he. did. not. whine. for. anyone_. And yet he would have whined for her.

"Are you okay?" She finally asked when he couldn't seem to manage to get more than a pleading sound out.

_Finally! An opening! Answer her stupid!_ He thought to himself as he quickly held the flowers out to her and blurted out, "Me Bucky! Me love you long time! Oh crap- I-I mean-"

She titled her head to the side a little bit and regarded him with a weirdly calculating look on her lovely face, glanced down at the nice bouquet of flowers with a small frown before fishing out her cell phone- at this point he was damn near closing in on the juvenile need to hurl the flowers at her and run away screaming- he was just freaking out so much. Dialing a number on her phone, she was nice enough to put it on speaker as she cast him another odd look that damn near had him squirning this time as a feminine voice finally came over the phone.

"Ichigo! What's up? I hardly ever hear from you this time of year. Is dad being a pain again?"

"Among other things," The woman- er Ichigo? Muttered before then asking, "Is there a special meaning behind guy's giving women flowers?" Bucky froze up again, his mind simply sputtering to a halt at the implications of Ichigo's question.

There was an excited squealing sound from the other end of the line that had them both cringing a little bit at the volume of it before the other girl's voice practically shouted, "Oh my god Ichigo! Is someone asking you out on a date?!"

She looked back at him questioningly this time and he merely nodded his head silently. Hoping that she understood what he was confirming. She did thank god. "Apparently so."

"I'm so happy for you Ichigo!"

"Thanks..." Ichigo said in an uncomfortable tone before quickly adding, "Don't tell dad. I don't want him coming here and showing up on my doorstep."

"But Ichigo-"

"No."

"But he'll be so happy-"

"His happiness is depressing."

"But he's been trying to marry you off for-"

"I said _no_ Yuzu. I will change my locks and call the police on him if he shows up. _Don't think that you can test me on_ _this_."

"_Fine,_" The other girl said in a sullen tone before promising. "I won't tell him."

"Alright. Talk to you later."

"You better. Karin and I will want details."

"Bye." Ichigo said, barely giving the other enough time to say goodbye before she hung up with s sigh and muttered, "Dammit, she's going to tell dad..."

"U-Um..." Bucky managed to say as he used his free hand to point to himself in question.

"Oh! Right, sorry. Sure, we can go out. I'm free today and maybe the next few days too so whenever is convenient for you is-" She was cut off by Bucky quickly and excitingly saying,

_"Now please!"_

"Uh...o-okay. Now is fine," She said awkwardly before slowly reaching out to finally take the bouquet of flowers from him. A sort of bewildered look on her face as she studied them before asking, "Did you order these special or just pick some up at a shop? I'm sorry that was rude wasn't it? I mean- I think they're really nice and I only asked because of the amount of thought that you obviously put into this! I mean, you were really nervous and- I'm sorry, I really suck at this..."

She finally fell quiet and waited for him to say something, but Bucky just grinned at her happily and said. "You're adorable... Let's try this again. My name is Bucky, and since we both sort of suck at this, would you please go out with me?" He said as he offered her his hand for a handshake.

This was something that Ichigo was familiar with, so she gave him a small smile and took his hand in hers and shook it as she said, "My name is Ichigo, I'd love to go out with you. What would you like to do for our date?"

* * *

The two of them walked together in silence for the better part of fifteen minutes after leaving the park together before her date finally seemed to find his voice again and finally asked her curiously, "So you've never been given flowers before?"

"I've never been on a date before." She said absently, missing the way that his head snapped to the side so that he was looking right at her as he sputtered out,

"A-Are you k-kidding me? Y-Your gorgeous! H-how could you not have-"

"Hn, oh, I tend to intimidate people. So guys usually just don't bother."

"That's unbelievable! Are they blind or just plain dumb?" He blurted out in a dumbfounded tone, eliciting a soft laugh from her.

"Maybe a little bit of both."

"I believe it. Otherwise, you'd have been snatched up already and been married and had a few kids." He said in an unusually solemn tone. Ichigo merely smiled and gently patted his arm.

"I don't think I'm much of the marrying type."

"Huh? Why not?" He sounded startled, maybe surprised by her admittance.

"Dunno. I just thought I'd spend my life alone, is all."

"Then you obviously haven't met the right guy. Don't worry, I'll work hard to change your mind." He said as he lifted his free hand to the hand lying on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she didn't need a man.

That she wasn't one of those weak women who wanted one as a permanent fixture in her life. However the buzzing of her cell phone interrupted her. Sighing, she fished her phone out of her pocket and ground her teeth so hard that it was a wonder they didn't break apart in her mouth as a loud growl escaped her throat.

Bucky stopped walking for a second, wondering what was wrong with her. And nearly kicked himself when he finally realized just how jerk-ish he'd sounded. He was about to apologize when he saw that she had her phone out again and was reading something.

Peeking over her shoulder a little bit, he stared at the text for a moment curiously and nearly jumped out of his skin when she took her phone in both hands and cleanly snapped it in half. Which was no small feat considering that her cell doubled as a touch pad and was somewhat thick.

Once she'd broken it in half, she seemed to calm down considerably and merely huffed as she muttered. "Great. Now I need a new cell phone too."

"D-Did you just-"

"Yup."

"B-But how-"

"Doesn't matter how. Now hand me yours."

"Huh?!"

"You're cell, hand it here." She said in a determined tone as he fumbled for a moment to fish his cell out. Once it was in her hand, she studied it for a moment noting that it was a Stark phone. The latest edition. Very high tech and suave. Too bad she was going to break it too.

"Do I even want to know why you wanted my-" There was a loud cracking sound that had him staring at where his phone had been in utter horror before saying in a dazed tone. "Y-You broke my phone."

"Yep," She said, totally unrepentant. "Don't worry, I'll replace it. Just think of it as having no way to get distracted."

"B-But my phone."

"You'll live without it for the time being."

"B-But what if there's an emergency?"

"You ever hear of smoke signals?" He merely nodded his head mutely as she smiled at him and said, "If the emergency is bad enough, someone _will_ find a way. It'll be just like trying to signal Batman."

"B-but-"

_"Bat-man." _She said in a sing song voice that had him shutting up just so that he could listen to it. You know, despite the tragedy that now was his former phone, maybe this was a good thing. Distractions were bad for dates. Especially first ones. Messing with them tended to make a bad impression on dames.

* * *

Bucky let Ichigo more or less lead him around for a little while. Which wasn't bad since it gave him a way to gather intel on her. And so far, he had to say, she was a very surprising little gal.

Not just because she had destroyed both of their phones with her bare hands- though he would admit that he was more than a little bit curious about that. But figured that asking at this point would be...well, rude. So he simply filed that little bit of information away in the back of his mind under _Questions for Later_ and moved on.

So far, Ichigo had taken him to several out of the way little arts and crafts stores where she had found some things that he assumed was either things that she liked, or something that she intended to use for something. He'd noted earlier at the park that her hands had some callousness on them from someone who tended to work with their hands a lot.

So after she had purchased a couple of items from the third store. "If you don't mind me asking, I can't really help but feel curious about what you plan to do with these things?" He asked as he lifted one of the smaller bags in one of his hands and peered inside of it for like the tenth time in the past twenty minutes.

Just what kind of dame bought unscented lotion base, chemicals, and scented oils anyways?

She laughed softly at his perplexed expression and simply said, "I make things. Jewelry, scented lotions, soaps, and other stuff. Some are high priced specialty items. I thought that since i had some free time today that I'd look for new stuff to work with."

"Oh. I guess that I kind of crashed you're plans, huh." He said, sounding kind of bummed. But she merely shook her head at him and patted him on the arm and told him to cheer up. He hadn't ruined her plans or anything. If anything she found him to be pleasant company. And it wasn't often that she had any sort of company...pleasant or otherwise.

Bucky smiled at her as soon as she finished speaking and eagerly asked where they were going next.

Not long after that, she checked her wrist watch to see what time it was and let out a low whistle and suggested that they go grab some food and rest up for a little bit. Bucky nodded and wondered where they would go next when she asked him if he had any preferences food wise.

He wasn't a picky eater.

Since being given a variation of the same serum that Steve had been given, he couldn't exactly afford to be picky. He simply needed the calories and such far to much to keep functioning. And unlike the normal human body his didn't shut down quickly when he went without.

It slowly- very, _very_ slowly, shut down- however instead of losing consciousness or flat out dying, he remained conscious and alive enough to feel and be aware of everything. Every hunger pain, every cramp, every muscle that his body broke down to fuel itself.

It had happened a few times when he'd been with Hydra.

And while he didn't recall the exact details- he did recall the excruciating _agony_ he'd felt, and how he had cried for someone to make it stop.

Now whenever Bucky had food in front of him, he tended to protect it, quite viciously from anyone who tried to take it from him. Stark had found that out the hard way when he'd tried to steal a few french fries from him a while back.

The man _still_ had the teeth marks in his wrist from where Bucky had bitten him.

"Let me see," Ichigo mumbled to herself for a moment before going on to say, "We could go to a burger place. You seem like the type of guy who likes burgers. Or we can go to a buffet place. There are a few near here and you can eat as much as you want. I even know one that serves nothing but pizza, another that serves all you can eat steak- Or would you prefer taco's or a nicer place or something?" She sounded a little bit worried about where he might like to go.

In truth he didn't really care. Like he'd told her before, he wasn't a picky eater.

But since she seemed worried about where they should go...maybe he should say something?

"Which buffet place do you wanna go too?" He asked after a moment or two. She blinked up at him and then looked around before replying,

"Oh, um...let me see. The steak place is just up ahead. And the pizza one is several blocks to the south..."

"Steak it is." Bucky said as he shifted his hold on her purchases and gently took her hand in his as he started walking. She squeaked cutely as he walked a little bit ahead of her. His long legs eating up the distance between them and their destination as she all but tripped over herself for a moment or so just to keep up with him before he seemed to realize that he was literally dragging her and slowed himself down a bit and looked down at her apologetically.

She didn't seem pissed at him like most dames would have been. In fact if anything she seemed amused. Though he didn't really know why until she finally decided to say something. And when she did, he couldn't help but huff out a small laugh himself.

The words, 'typical boy', pretty much explained everything that she had found amusing about his antics.


	4. Chapter 4

Once they were at the restaurant, Bucky could see that it was much nicer than most all you can eat buffet places. It was certainly much cozier and more...well, it had a more romantic feel to it. It had a sort of old school- meets modern day feel to it that he just loved.

The tables had nice lace trimmed table clothes, the plates were hand painted porcelain, the silver was polished to a nice shine- hell even the glasses that people were drinking out of- had a nice crystal look to them. And the prices of the food...he had thought it would be overwhelming.

Like thirty dollars a plate or something. Especially since they served steak.

But that wasn't the case and he was pleasantly surprised that he and Ichigo could have an all you can eat steak buffet for eleven dollars and ninety cents each!

He could feel his excitement mounting by the second and was all kinds of _hyped_ up to try the food. It smelled absolutely fantastic.

So after paying for them both, and making all kinds of mental notes to mention the place to Steve and Stark, he slipped an arm around Ichigo's slender shoulders in a gentlemanly fashion and carefully maneuvered her over to one of the booths and took a moment to let her slide into her seat before he sat himself down across from her with a goofy grin on his face.

So far, he would say that his date with her was going fairly well. Even by his outdated standards.

Ichigo was great. Funny, awkward and endearing, and maybe just a little bit socially inept- but hey, no one was perfect right. And she had put up with the few blunders that he'd made without saying a word.

Which sort of clued him in on just how little Ichigo seemed to actually know about dating.

And he wasn't sure if he should be happy, saddened, relieved or pissed about that. Honestly she was a beautiful girl- a man would have to practically be a _moron_ not to want to get close to her.

The two of them sat there for several minutes waiting patiently for their drinks to arrive when Ichigo finally suggested that they go and grab their food that way they could get comfortable and have something to munch on while they made small talk.

Bucky thought that was a damned fine idea since he was kind of both _hungry_ and _anxious_ to talk a little bit more and gather more...uh..._intel_ on her. He still had to learn her likes and dislikes and such, after all.

Grabbing a plate, he and Ichigo hit separate places to get food.

He first hit the steak area, grabbing himself five large- and thick, medium rare steaks- before moving on to grab some side items on a separate plate before even bothering to glance away from the food for a moment to locate his dame.

Ichigo was doing this weird plate balancing thing with her fingertips that she had a nice, decent sized salad bowl, and three separate plates of chicken, potato's with something white, some fish, spaghetti and several warm, buttery yeast dinner rolls, and some other odds and end's all carefully balanced together as she grabbed herself her own serving of steak.

She grabbed nine rare ones and meandered over to their booth to put everything down while he sort of sputtered where he stood for a moment, his eyes wide in shock as he wondered how the hell she was going to manage to eat _all_ of that in one sitting.

Before simply sighing and deciding that she probably wouldn't, and had it firmly fixed in his mind that she might just take some of it home with her for dinner as he finished fixing his own plate before heading back over to the booth and sitting down.

Fifteen minutes later, he'd eaten a moderate _four_ plates of food and Ichigo had herself a nice pile of _ten_ separate plates, and five salad bowls that left him absolutely agog. So far she'd eaten more than fifteen steaks, more than five helpings of chicken (fried and baked) six helpings of seafood (shrimp, some clams, seafood salad, deep fried fish) Four large salads practically swimming in buttermilk ranch- what the hell?! Weren't girls supposed to eat like birds?! He wondered as she polished off her latest plate and carefully added it to the growing pile while he simply gaped at her in disbelief before finally asking, "Where do you put it all?"

He wasn't trying to be mean or rude, despite his somewhat demanding tone. He simply wanted to know because she was eating like he and Steve usually did.

Totally unrepentant and unrestrained. As if she had been starved for a month straight or something. He was beginning to wonder if she had a hollow leg or something. The sheer amount of food that she had managed to put away was simply _mind boggling_, even to him.

Ichigo took a moment to take a sip of her drink and then said, "I have a really fast metabolism." Which technically wasn't a lie. She did. And the fact that her spirit energy was greater than a normal person's meant that she tended to burn more calories than a normal person.

She'd noticed early on during her time as a Soul Reaper that if she went without food for more than a few hours, she tended to weaken more than the average Soul Reaper. Her wounds took longer to heal if she was injured and her chances of dying greatly increased.

_Thank god_ that Urahara had helped her out by creating special protein bars and such specifically geared towards her dietary needs that she could easily keep on her to munch on in-between rest and running around, and _still_ keep her energy up enough to be a pain in everyone's collective asses.

She'd have likely died a million times over if he hadn't.

Though she suspected that he'd done it not out of kindness, but out of some warped need for entertainment. _The fucker_. She thought somewhat darkly as Bucky said, "I have a really fast metabolism too, but I doubt that I could pack away half as much as you just did."

Ichigo frowned at him for a second and looked away from him, feeling somewhat embarrassed as she subtly reached out with her senses and let them brush against his energy, gently probing it. She could feel his own hunger gnawing at him even as he practically gaped at her in astonishment. She could also feel his curiosity and bewilderment as well as a touch of his own embarrassment at pointing out her need for food.

There was also a sliver of mortification present there.

It wasn't geared towards her specifically. More like he was mentally berating himself at the moment for possibly_ hurting_ her feelings.

Pulling her senses back, just in case he was sensitive enough to actually notice the gentle touch of her abilities, she sighed and then turned back to him and gave him a slightly strained looking smile and simply said awkwardly, "O-Oh. I didn't realize that I was supposed to eat less. Sorry, if I embarrassed you or something."

Snapping his mouth shut, he looked at her oddly for a moment before taking a shaky breath and then muttering, "Don't apologize for needing such a large quantity of food. You can't help it if you're metabolism is faster than normal. If you need the calories that badly then eat some more. To be honest, I was kind of nervous about eating just as much. Dames don't normally find it attractive in a guy to see them eat like pigs-"

He paused for a moment as he seemed to realize what he'd just said before hastily saying in a slightly panicked tone, "N-Not that you were eating like a pig or anything! You weren't! You have _very_ good table manners and uh... C-Can we start this conversation over please?" He finished in a weakly as he slumped over in his seat a little bit with a groan, looking uncomfortable.

"I see." Was all that Ichigo could think to say to him before standing up and meandering over to the buffet and grabbing six more plates and then walking back to the table and handing him three of them and then motioned with her head for him to join her.

He just looked at her for a moment before finally standing up and taking the offered dishes from her and following her back over to the food.

After that, she ate those three plates full of food and then happily told him that she was done. Though she did mention something about grabbing a snack at some point before she went home. Cookies or donuts maybe?

While she was thinking about that, he ate five more plates of food. Putting the number of dishes piled on the table somewhere around a staggering twenty something.

After which the two of them sat back in their seats a little bit before Ichigo pointed out, "We never really talked."

"We didn't, did we?"

"Not really. So how about we fix that a little bit before we leave?"

"I'm game," He said as he straightened up in his seat a little bit. "How do you wanna do this?"

"I guess we can try something like twenty questions. Basic stuff like age, birthday, favorite color, food, movie, music- and such and simply branch out from there."

"Sounds good. So who goes first?"

"You first. I'm curious to see what sort of questions you come up with." Ichigo said as she propped her chin in her hand and waited.

"Okay. "Age?"

"Twenty two."

"Young. Nice. Birthday?"

"July the fifteenth."

"Favorite color?"

"It varies from day to day. Today it's blue. Tomorrow is probably going to either be red or some shade of green. Monday it'll probably be black and so on."

Bucky nodded his head in understanding before then asking, "Favorite food?"

"Don't you mean favorite foods?" Ichigo corrected him with an amused smile before then saying, "I'm not a picky eater. So I can go for whatever. Though I am allergic to mushrooms and strawberries. Anything without those is good."

"How badly are you allergic?"

"Enough to have warranted several hospital trips cause my throat closed up."

He cringed slightly and filed the information away in the back of his mind along with everything else that he'd learned about her thus far. "Okay, favorite flower?" He asked curiously.

"O-Oh. Well...like I've said before, I've never really been given flowers before..but I like daisies, peonies, irises, lilies, sunflowers and some other things. I sort of like the fact that they remind me of my late mom. It's...nice- nostalgic, ya know."

"You're mom died?" It was meant as a question. Though it sounded more like a demand for more information. Normally such weirdly phrased questions would set her teeth on end. But this was a date, after all. And from what little bit she knew of them, dates were a chance to get to know another person via questions.

Establish a connection with them and create a bond.

So she let the way that the question had been phrased this time, slide and simply replied. "Yeah. She was murdered while walking me home from karate class when I was seven."

"She was mu-mur- _Shit_, I'm sorry, doll. Was the person responsible ever caught?"

"Not exactly." She said cryptically. "The authorities weren't able to find any clues or witnesses to help locate him. However my dad was very afraid for years after it happened that the guy might come back for me and my sisters. So he took me aside and taught me how to fight hand to hand, and how to use various weapons. He was a former special forces guy that had retired from the military after he and my mom married. So the knowledge came in handy."

"D-Did the guy ever-"

"He did. when I was fourteen. He came back and attacked my dad and younger twin sisters and myself. My dad was knocked unconscious, and both of my sisters got hurt. I managed to get him away from them and suffered a few bad injuries myself- but..._I stopped him_." There was something about the way that she said those last words that sent a chill down his spine and made his blood run cold in his veins. "I did what I had to to defend myself and my family."

"Did you know that it was him?"

"_No_. Not immediately. But he practically confessed while he lay dying. He finally recognized me as the kid that my mom died protecting. He even said that he should have killed me too. So I turned and left him to bleed out so that I could check on my dad and sisters and call the authorities."

"I see. Were they okay?"

"They were a little bit bruised and banged up. But they weren't half as injured as I was. I had to stay in the hospital for a month in a half to completely heal up. I suffered several shattered bones that required surgery, as well as my eyes... I lost them and needed to have an eye transplant surgery. I also suffered some nerve damage in my left arm and right leg and had to have two feet of my large intestines taken out because they were shredded to pieces thanks to the bastard's knife. I lucked out on everything else though."

"A-And you still managed to kick his ass?" Bucky squeaked in disbelief as she laughed softly at him. His expression was comical.

"Yeah, I was kind of a mean kid. And he made the mistake of thinking that I was helpless like my sister's. He underestimated me, so...I kind of let him keep thinking that I was helpless."

"B-But you were injured!"

"Yes and I expected the injuries. I think the only thing that I didn't expect was to lose my eyes. Did you know that fighting _blind_ is literally a pain in the ass?" He merely nodded his head mutely since he was uncertain about what to say to her regarding her former blindness.

He decided to try and change the flow of conversation a bit after that. Figuring that she probably had some questions of her own, yet he was apprehensive about answering all of them. And so was trying to figure out a way to ease her into the whole Winter Soldier thing as she began to slowly ask him questions.

She didn't ask him about his former life in the military, which he was somewhat grateful for. Though she did point out that he was a former soldier. Apparently the way he moved coupled with his metal arm- gave him away somewhat. And she was polite enough not to bother asking him how he had lost his arm in the first place, which was a little bit strange as well as a relief.

When he asked her if she wanted to ask him about it, she merely shrugged and told him that something like comparing old battle scars was better suited for a relationship after a month or so. And then promised him that if was still around by that point, they'd do something fun to lighten a probably very depressing conversation once they'd talked and compared scars.

He just nodded his head again in agreement, wondering just what the hell he was supposed to say to something like that.

He told her that his favorite color was between emerald green and hunter green, his favorite food was anything eatable and Italian- though he did confess to having a particular fondness for anything pizza, pasta or chocolate related. Though chocolate had nothing to do with Italian food, a person couldn't go wrong with it. Ever.

He was a fan of action, sci-fi, drama, and comedy movies.

His age, he had been twenty-ish when he'd fallen from the train and been taken by Hydra. And since his escape, he'd only aged a few years. Four or so to be exact. So he rounded his age up a bit to make it as normal as possible for her. Which would mean that he'd told her that his age was around twenty five, maybe twenty five in a half.

His birthday was March the seventeenth.

He was a fan of jazz music. And was still trying to figure out rap, rock and alternative rock. But it all sounded like gibberish to him.

He liked animals. Though he'd never had the joy of owning one. And from the almost _frightening_ smile that Ichigo gave him upon hearing this, he got the funny feeling that she would drag him into cat training session sometime in the near future.

He also liked cooking, gardening, and reading as hobbies.

He didn't bother mentioning his association with the Avengers. Figuring that that was something else that he should ease her into.

He did mention that he was seeking a long term relationship, and wanted to date her exclusively. And Ichigo seemed genuinely startled by this. But she didn't seem to really mind. In fact, she told him that that was fine and then told him to be patient with her.

She even warned him that she was awkward and clumsy, and sometimes infuriatingly oblivious.

She knew that there would be times that she would likely push his buttons in one way or another. He seemed to understand this and simply told her that that was fine. He'd probably push her buttons from time to time too.

And by the end of their talk, they both left the restaurant smiling. After of course, they both left a nice big tip of fifty bucks for the poor sap that had to pick up after their mess.


	5. Chapter 5

A short while after leaving the restaurant, Bucky found himself watching his new girlfriend as she paced back and forth in front of a phone and computer display at an electronics shop about two blocks away from where they'd eaten. She was frowning as she studied each piece of tech.

Almost as if she couldn't make up her mind about what she wanted.

He already had his new phone in hand. It was another expensive Stark phone, but a much better one. It didn't have any of the werid apps or programs that his old one had had. And though he knew that it likely wouldn't stay that way, he still couldn't help but be happy with the phone anyways.

He'd offered to pay for it himself once he'd seen the price of it, but Ichigo had firmly told him no. She'd broken his old one, so she could damn well pay for his new one.

He was conflicted about this of course. Mostly due to his old fashioned upbringing.

Back in his day, when a guy had a dame like Ichigo- _he_ was the one who took care of her. Not the other way around. So while he was feeling conflicted about her telling him that she would buy it for him, at the same time, it was a little bit of a novel experience for him.

The only other person that ever really tried to take care of him was Steve.

Speaking of, he should be getting home soon. And Bucky wondered if he could get a picture of Ichigo for his phone so that he could show Steve and the others.

For god's sake, he _finally_ had a girlfriend! He had bragging rights!

Finally Ichigo seemed to make a decision concerning what phone and computer she wanted to get, and waved over one of the sale's people who practically came running no doubt due to the fact that Ichigo had handed him his new phone earlier and were looking to have her drop some more money so that they would get a higher commission check.

"Yes ma'am, how may I help you?" The same person that had helped them find Bucky's phone said as he finally reached them. Bucky had a weird feeling that his girl was about to be taken on a trip by the guy and was gearing up to step in, but he needn't have bothered. His girl apparently knew the games that the sales people played and was well versed in countering them.

"Yes. I'd like this phone," She said pointing down to a small, sleek model that wasn't very eye catching. In fact it was probably one of the most practical items that he'd seen her look at thus far. He could practically sense the guy's disappointment as he tried to con her into buying one of the more expensive phone models. However Ichigo stood firm on her decision.

She wanted that phone. Four of them.

And then came time to buy her computer. She'd picked a nice one with plenty of memory and all the bells and whistles that came with it. She got five of those which practically had the kid serving her- hyperventilating with joy where he stood. She told him that she would only be taking one computer and phone with her today, and she wanted the rest shipped to her home in the next twenty four hours.

Once the kid pulled out the stuff she'd be taking with her when she left, they all headed over to the checkout where Bucky took the time to do the math involved with her purchases and damn near swallowed his tongue. She was spending over twenty thousand dollars on these things!

Sure his phone alone was close to eight thousand dollars, but it was a Stark phone. Those were expensive no matter how you looked at em!

Watching as their stuff was rung up- he started to chime in again about paying for his own. It wasn't exactly like he was hard up for money nowadays. Not with seventy years worth of military back pay and such.

Hell, just the other day he'd bought himself a newly renovated, spacious two story cabin style house. The thing had six bedrooms, three in a half bathrooms, a huge Livingroom and modern style kitchen, a library and a garage. It had been built on a decently sized piece of land. About two miles in any direction.

And it hadn't even made a damn dent on his checking account.

And _don't_ even get him started on his savings account. He had so much money there that he could damn near rival Stark. Which was nice and all. Especially since he planned to use that money on his family once he got hitched.

He didn't want his wife or kids to ever worry about finances.

Not like he and Steve had when they were growing up.

Feeling Ichigo's hand on his arm, he blinked down at her and caught her worried expression and wondered what she was worried about as she grabbed her bag and started leading him through the shop towards the direction of the door.

"Did you get everything that you needed?" He asked.

"Yeah. I got everything. I gave them my address and made arrangements for the rest to be shipped to my home since I didn't want you to carry them. Come on, let's...go get some cookies and maybe grab a few pizza's."

"Hungry again?"

"Not really. I just think we should do it before I decide to call it a day." She said as she gently tugged him over to the door and pulled it open for them both and held it in place with one of her feet as she motioned with her head for him to go ahead.

He balked because this was just another instance where his old fashioned manners came into play. He didn't want his gal to hold doors open for him, he wanted to do things like that for her to show her that he was a gentleman and would treat her right.

But since Ichigo was a modern gal, she probably had no concept of this. So as much as he wanted to say something, he also didn't want to ruin things by possibly offending her modern sensibilities.

Ichigo watched him for a moment, easily able to spot the internal struggle within him before managing to catch herself. Oh. _Oh!_ Did she just maybe offend him by opening the door for him? She wondered as she started to open her mouth to apologize when he reached out and placed his hand on the door just above her shoulder and leaned into her personal space and softly chided her, "The man should hold the door open for his dame, Ichigo. Not the other way around."

She inwardly cringed for a moment despite the fact that his tone was soft and lacked any anger. "Sorry." She muttered, feeling embarrassed for not even _knowing_ such a simple thing about dating.

He made a soft humming sound as he looked down at her. She looked embarrassed. She had a fetching pink-ish tint to her cheeks that made her look absolutely breathtaking.

He'd have to make her blush again. He thought absently as she finally moved around him to leave. He held himself perfectly still until she had brushed by him and then turned to follow her out.

After that, they went and got themselves a couple of cookies from a nearby bakery and then went and grabbed themselves some pizzas. And since their date was coming to an end, Bucky politely saw her home and walked her to her door.

They stood there for a moment after she unlocked her apartment door, facing each other, unsure of what to say. Bucky was on the fence about a couple of things since he wasn't sure if they were totally appropriate for a first date.

Like whether or not he should kiss her or if he could come in for a little bit because he didn't want their date to end just yet.

Gently handing over her stuff, flowers and all, he let her put them away and heard the insistent and excited meowing of two distinct tiny voices and had to fight against the urge to chuckle a one of the 'meower's' practically raced out of the open door and latched onto one of her legs and simply hung there for a moment.

She staggered for a second before huffing out a small laugh and putting a hand on the cat's head to scratch between it's ears and then looked back at him and simply said, "Sorry, he has separation anxiety. He's a momma's boy."

He just smiled at her and let his gaze flicker down to the cat, noting that the big baby had climbed a little bit higher up her leg where he was just hanging from her, _purring_ happily under her ministrations as she said, "I had a nice time today."

"Me too."

"I-I uh...I don't know the proper way to say goodbye for now. Especially after a date like ours."

"Say it any way you want." Bucky said with a slight shrug understanding her predicament.

"Yeah but- I kind of want to kiss you but I-" She said shyly as he stepped in close to her and very gently took her chin in his fist and tipped her head back so that he could brush her lips with his own. The moment his mouth brushed against her own, he felt hopelessly lost.

So much so that he growled and backed her against the wall before sealing his mouth over her own. She made a weird squeaking sound against his lips that had him almost grinning. _Almost_ being the operative word. Instead he took the opening that the sound presented to him, wanting to leave her with her taste on his lips so that he could dream about her tonight while he slept.

He might have lingered just a little bit longer if not for the loud, and incredibly _displeased_ sounding growl that startled him away from her.

"_Woops_. Sorry little guy." He muttered as he glanced down at the cat attached to his gal. The little beast hissed at him and pressed his little body closer to Ichigo's leg as she huffed and rolled her eyes at the felines antics before giving Bucky a small apologetic smile.

"Sorry about him."

"No problem doll, he's just protecting his momma," Bucky said with another shrug before then asking, "You busy tomorrow?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Then again, I may decide to leave the apartment so that I can dodge my dad and his weird calls and texts."

Bucky laughed. "He can't possibly be that bad."

"Oh, _he is_. Just wait until he pops up on you're doorstep at dark-thirty in the damned morning, after _you've_ not slept for days, and calls you 'son'. I guarantee that you'll slam the door in his face and climb out the nearest window and flee into the night in abject terror."

Bucky outright laughed at that until he heard her land line start to ring like mad until the answering machine picked up and he heard a distinct, **"Ichigo! My darling baby girl! Please be making my grandbabies as we speak- remember that when in bed with a guy you need to try different positions! Some of them are easier to impregnate someone with than others." **

Bucky's jaw dropped open in horror and he gave her a slightly sympathetic look before cringing and simply muttering, "Oh my god- was that him?"

"Sadly."

"You're right. I would climb out a window and run away in abject terror."

She merely nodded her head, quietly, her expression a cross between mortified and pained as she said a slightly pleading tone, "Will you kiss me again to distract me from that mess?"

"Yeah, yeah okay."

"And you were going to ask me out again right?"

"Yeah, I was."

"Awesome. I'll cook. You just...show up here around five or so."

"Sounds good." Bucky said as he started to lean in to kiss her again when she suddenly said,

"We haven't even exchanged numbers yet." He snorted in amusement and finally managed to stop her rambling so that he could kiss her again before he left.

* * *

An hour later-

Bucky finally walked through the door to the common room at the tower where he was met by Steve, Thor, Bruce, Natasha, and Clint. All of whom had been huddled together talking, mere moments prior as he wandered in and sat himself down on the couch and texted Ichigo on his new phone, that he was finally home.

He had a nice, funny little thing for his girlfriend.

Just before he had left, she had given him her new phone's number and her land line number so that he could get a hold of her and mentioned that if he wasn't home within forty five minutes- she _would_ be coming to find him and make sure that he got home okay, personally.

He'd merely grinned at her and kissed her on the cheek and then walked back down to the door of her building, whistling happily. He'd just had his first successful date in the past seventy years, he'd wanted to bask a little bit before he faced Steve and the others.

"Bucky! There you are, Steve's been throwing all kinds of fits because you were MIA." Bruce said as he elbowed Steve to get him out of his way and practically made a beeline for him.

Bucky barely had enough time to tear his eyes away from Ichigo's text back to him before Bruce was up in his personal space, startling him slightly. "How'd the date go?" Bruce asked him in a soft tone in an effort to keep the others from overhearing him.

Bucky merely grinned at him and typed out on his new cell, **I got another date tomorrow around five pm. She said she'd cook. **And then held the message up for Bruce to see.

The man gave him a smile that he quickly wiped off of his face as Steve walked over and stood in front of them both. Bucky blinked at his punk but didn't bother to ask what the hell his problem was. He already knew.

Steve had been an overprotective little shit ever since he'd escaped from Hydra.

Hell part of the reason why he'd been so freaked out earlier today when Ichigo had broken his Stark phone had to do with the tracking device in it.

Steve had asked Stark specifically to place a tracker in his phone so that he could keep tabs on him even while he was out on missions across the world. So Bucky would imagine that _not_ being able to find him once the phone was broken, had put his best pal in quite a dark mood.

Probably cause he'd been worried that he'd been grabbed by someone from what was left of Hydra.

"Where the hell have you been?" Steve demanded, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at him in disappointment.

Bucky didn't care though. He'd had a nice time with his new girlfriend and was _totally_ unrepentant.

"Bucky, I asked you a question." Steve growled at him as Bucky's phone started to ring. Bucky glanced down at it for a moment and frowned when he saw that it was Ichigo's number.

Clicking the call button as Steve started to open his mouth to demand answers again, Bucky turned his back to him and put the phone up to his ear and greeted Ichigo with an affectionate, "Doll?"

_"Hey! I just had this bad feeling that something was about to happen and just wanted to double check on you."_ Ichigo said from the other end of the line.

Bucky smiled as he said slowly, "Did you now? Well it's sweet of you to call me and check up on me, doll. But I'm fine. My best friend was just throwing a hissy fit cause he didn't know that I left home today." Bucky turned his head ever so slightly to cast Steve a look from over one of his shoulders, noting the sudden change in his punk's body language.

It had gone from aggressive/worried to...well, shell shocked. Hell, he _looked_ shell shocked.

His blue eyes were wide, his jaw was all but slack. And if not for Natasha walking up to him and using one of her fingers to shut his mouth, he might have caught quite a few flies.

_"So we're still on for tomorrow?"_ Ichigo asked, before then tacking on. _"I was thinking of making seafood. You know, shrimp, cat fish, scallops and such with a few sides of alfredo pasta, some dinner rolls and a salad. Sound okay? Or would you prefer something else? Something more italian maybe?" _

"I'm good with whatever you wanna fix for me sweetness. I'm kind of dying to know what you're cooking tastes like."

_"Okay! I'll have it ready by the time you get here."_

"Thanks doll."

_"See you then!" _

"Okay. Bye." Bucky said as Ichigo hung up and then turned his attention back to Steve and almost snorted as his best friend stammered out.

"Y-Y-You have a g-girlfriend!" It sort of sounded like an accusation. Despite the comical expression on Steve's face. Which was a cross between a worried frown, a scowl, and a excited grin.

Bucky just grinned at him.

"But I can't even get a girlfriend. How did you- Where did you even meet her?"

"In the park this morning."

"B-But she could be a bad person-"

"And I can take care of myself. Former Hydra assassin, remember?"

"H-How did you even come across this woman?"

"She's the friendly neighborhood cat trainer."

_"What?!"_ Steve squawked before then quickly catching Bucky in a headlock and starting to drag him off. Bucky just huffed at his punk's antics and prepared himself for the upcoming_ loooong_ chat that he and his punk were going to have about Ichigo.


	6. Chapter 6

Once Steve had them both on their floor of the building, safely locked away inside of Steve's room, then and only then did his punk even bother to release him from the head lock that he'd put him in and forced him down on his couch.

And then meandered into his kitchen and grabbed then both a couple of beers. And then returned, and handed one to Bucky as he seated himself across from the brunette on the coffee table, and practically demanded that he spill _everything_ that he knew about his new girlfriend.

"Okay, Buck. Spill. I want to know everything. What's you're gal's name?"

"Ichigo."

"That's a..."

"Foreign name, yeah. She's part Japanese."

"Okay, we'll come back to that later. How old is she?"

"Twenty two."

"T-That's pretty young Buck. You sure about her? Young girls tend to be really immature."

"She's not immature. Not really anyways. Today was a first for her on several levels."

"Oh? How so?" Steve asked curiously.

"S-She didn't know that I was asking her out at first Stevie. She's never been given flowers. Or dated _anybody_ before."

"You're kidding," Steve muttered as he popped the top off of his beer and took a sip. He had a frown on his face, like he just couldn't figure out how some twenty two year old woman had never been on a date before. "Is she pretty?"

"Oh my god, Stevie she's hands down one of the most gorgeous little gals I've ever seen before! One second, I have a few videos of her doing her cat training thing in the park saved to my phone account." Bucky said as he took a moment to pull up his videos of Ichigo and then handed his phone over to Steve so that he could see for himself.

Steve took his phone tenatively and pressed the play button and blinked as he gat his first real look at Bucky's gal. Bucky hadn't been wrong about her. She _was_ goregous. Maybe even more so than Nat herself was.

It took him a minute or so of watching her in the video before he finally understood what it was about her that Bucky liked so damned much.

It wasn't just the fact that she was easy on the eyes, that had caught the man's attention. There was also an air of untouched innocence surrounding her that had Steve's lips twitching somewhat. Bucky had always had a good eye for dames.

Especially the sweet ones.

There was simply something about them that tugged at his heartstrings and called out to his protective instincts.

Steve had no doubt that if he'd seen Ichigo before Bucky, he likely would have fallen for her too. Maybe not in the same way that he'd fallen for Peggy Carter, but he would have definitely felt something akin to it.

Laughing softly in amusement as the video finally ended with the woman on the ground wrapped in chain leashes and with a bunch of nasty tempered little felines hissing and spitting, he handed the phone back to Bucky and took another sip of his beer before then saying. "You're right. She's a looker."

"I know right! I _still_ can't figure out why the hell some guy hadn't snatched her up before now. I mean, come on- who would pass that up?!"

Steve nodded his head in understanding.

The men of the modern age were idiots. Geared more towards sluts and easy lays than actual honest to god relationships.

If Ichigo had been snatched up by someone before, then she likely would have wound up with a kid or two- been _abandoned_, suffered a broken heart and working several jobs just to make ends meet.

Men nowadays were total _morons_.

Thank god, that Bucky had snatched the pretty little gal up instead. At least with him, Ichigo could be sure that he was in the relationship for the long haul. Steve could also be assured that Bucky would treat the woman well due to his upbringing.

His old fashioned manners definitely would help his friend in the long run.

"Does she know that you're the former Winter Soldier-"

"No. I never brought it up. I do intend to tell her after I get to know her better though."

"Don't you think that she'll be upset if you don't tell her?"

"To be honest I'm not sure. She knew that I was a soldier, former military. She said that the way that I carried myself along with my metal arm, sort of gave me away."

"But she didn't ask."

"No. She said that she probably wouldn't until we'd been dating for about a month or so. She...She had a little bit of a messed up childhood Steve. She's got wounds of her own..." Bucky said, looking thoughtful and a little bit sad.

"Tell me about it." Steve said after a moment or so. Wanting to know what about his new gal had put such a look on his friend's face.

"Her ma was murdered while walking her home from karate class when she was seven." Bucky said with a small frown as Steve choked on his beer for a second before wheezing out a pitiful sounding,

"What?"

"He ma was killed. From the way that she talked about it, it still hurts her some to think about it. The guy that killed her was never really caught. And her dad was a former military, so after her ma died, he got scared that the guy would attack the family again. He trained Ichigo how to fight. Hand to hand and weapons. Ichigo said that the guy finally did come after her again, but she didn't realize that it was him until he was lying on the ground dying."

"W-what happened?"

"He attacked her and her family. Her dad was knocked unconscious and she has two twin younger sisters- he was...he was trying to kill them when she finally reached them. I guess she had just got home or something and caught him in the act. Her sisters were banged up and bruised some. But Ichigo...she lost her eyes, suffered several shattered bones, she lost about two feet of her large intestines before the guy shredded them with a knife while they were fighting. She spent over a month in the hospital because she had to heal up and have several surgeries to fix the damage to her eyes, bones and intestines."

"Jesus Christ. How old was she when that happened?"

"Fourteen."

"Did the guy-"

"Yeah. Ichigo told me that she killed him. He practically confessed to killing her ma before he died."

"You're right. That is messed up. What else do you know about her?"

"She doesn't just train cats. She also works for herself doing stuff from home."

"Oh?" Steve asked, his interest piqued a bit.

"She does artsy stuff."

"Really? Like what?"

"Jewelry making, she also makes hand made scented soaps, and lotions. High priced specialty items. She must make quite a bit too."

"Why's that?"

"Cause she bought me this new Stark phone and four other cells and several computers. Stevie she spent over twenty thousand dollars on tech alone! I just about died from shock."

Steve sputtered for a moment in disbelief. The only other person he really knew that had that kind of money to spend was Tony. But even he didn't spend that much on tech. Stuff to work with sure, but not actual tech. Especially since he could build just about anything he put his mind too.

"And she eats like we do! I've never seen a dame eat so much before. Honest to god I thought that she had a hollow leg or something. Between the two of us, we ate about twenty plate fulls of food. She had more than fifteen steaks bigger than the size of dinner plates! A few plates of fish, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, about five salads- big ones Stevie! I've never seen a dame eat so much and _still_ want more... I-It was mind boggling."

"I bet. You sure that she isn't pregnant?" Steve asked in a somewhat dazed tone as he tried to warp his mind around a woman eating such a quantity of food.

"I've never known a pregnant woman to eat that much without throwing up." Bucky deadpanned.

"Ah, good point. Anything else?"

"I got to kiss her goodnight when I walked her home," Bucky said with a little grin before then tacking on, "And one of her cats _growled_ at me while hanging from her leg." Steve laughed at that.

Irking Bucky enough to reach out and rudely push him from the coffee table so that he hit the floor with a loud thump and then sat back and took a swig of his beer as Steve slowly pushed himself upright and growled at him that he'd regret that.

Bucky set his beer down and quickly jumped over the back of the couch as Steve got to his feet and playfully gave chase.

A little while later, after the chase was over and Steve had at least managed to wrestle Bucky to the ground and playfully pounce on him and punch him a few times in the shoulder, the two sat on the couch in companionable silence for a little bit before Steve finally asked, "Do you think she'd be okay with me wanting to meet her?"

"I'm sure that she's expecting something like that to happen. So I don't really think she'd mind."

"Great! Gimme your phone."

"W-What? Why?"

"Cause I'm going to call her and ask if I can come over tomorrow to meet her."

"_What!_ You're going to weasel in on my date?!"

"Yup. Now gimme." Steve said as he held his hand out for his phone and wiggled his fingers at him. Bucky rolled his eyes at him and forked over his phone and watched as Steve called up Ichigo while he muttered,

"I'm going to laugh at you when she tells you to buzz off, ya know."

"Shhh." Steve shushed him as he put the phone on speaker and then waited.

_"Bucky?"_ Ichigo's tired and slightly sleepy sounding voice suddenly came over the line causing Bucky to sit up straight on the couch.

"Hey sweetness, sorry for calling so late. Did I wake you?" Bucky asked as he glanced across the room at the digital clock hanging on Steve's wall. Noting that the time was well after ten and then cast a dark glare back at Stevie as if to say, _Bastard. My girl is missing out on her beauty rest because of you._

_"Oh, no. I just decided to get ready for bed. Been thinking about calling it an early night." _

"Okay we'll I won't keep you long. I was just talking to my best friend, Steve and he is so jealous that I have a girlfriend that he wants to weasel in on our dinner date tomorrow. He wanted to call and ask if that was okay with you."

_"I doubt he's jealous that you have a girlfriend, Bucky. Sounds more like he just wants some free home cooked food." _

Steve made a strangled sound that had Bucky's lips twitching. "It does sort of sound like that, huh doll."

_"Afraid so. Does he have any food allergies?" _

"No ma'am. I do not."

_"Oh...and you are sitting right there listening to us rudely talk about you huh?"_ Ichigo muttered before then tacking on,_ "Hello mysterious friend Steve." _

The men laughed before Bucky said, "Nice save doll."

_"Thanks. I try. You don't mind fish, do you Steve?" _

"No ma'am. I don't mind it at all."

_"Any allergies to shell fish?" _

"Nope."

_"Alright. I'll see you both tomorrow then." _

"Alright. Thanks doll." Bucky said as Steve made kissing sounds, forcing him to smack him in the face with one of his couch cushions to shut him up.

_"No problem," _Ichigo said from behind her hand as she tried to suppress a yawn as a pair of meows sounded in the background somewhere. _"Ugh, sorry guys. I think I'm starting to fade here. Okay babies, bedtime. Momma needs her bedtime cuddles... Later boys." _She said softly as she hung up the phone.


	7. Chapter 7

Bucky and Steve showed up at Ichigo's apartment almost half an hour earlier than she was expecting them. Mostly because Steve had decided that he wanted a little bit of extra time to get to know the woman that his best friend had fallen for.

In actuality he was planning to make an utter _pest_ of himself to see how well she handled him on top of the anxiety of trying to make a good impression on the both of them.

It was his evil way of conducting a friendly hazing.

And Bucky had already warned him that if he pushed Ichigo too far, and made her cry- he would _not_ be held responsible for the unfortunate accident that would befall him on their way home later.

Steve had nodded mutely and quietly promised that he would do his best not to upset her too terribly much.

It would be difficult to live down having Bucky's foot surgically removed from his ass if he didn't. Especially since Tony would see to it that the whole event was_ televised_.

For Tony's enjoyment, and for Steve's mortification.

Knocking on the young woman's door, Steve stood next to Bucky and anxiously waited for her to open the door. They could clearly hear movement within.

But after a moment or so, they both began to worry that maybe something was wrong and Bucky was about to try knocking again when the door suddenly swung open and a pretty little blue eyed Siamese poked it's head out of the apartment and mewed at them.

"Did that cat just-"

"I don't know. Maybe we should ask once we're inside," Bucky muttered as he quietly pushed the door open and peeked inside of the apartment. "Ichigo! Doll, we're here." He called out hesitantly and frowned when he didn't see nor hear anything in response.

He heard a thud coming from one of the back rooms as the door opened and a woman with reddish-orange hair peeked out and smiled at him. "Oh, hello! I'm sorry I didn't mean not to answer you." The woman said as she walked out of the back room and down the hallway while Bucky stood completely still and stared at her.

Wondering if they had accidentally walked in on a robbery or something and his girlfriend was presently hog tied in the bedroom?

Although once he got a good look at the woman, he finally stopped freaking out. She looked to be about seven months pregnant. So there was no way in hell she'd be stealing anything and running anywhere.

Glancing over at Steve, he caught the punk eyeing the gal with a funny expression on his face as the woman finally came to a stop several inches from him and pulled a camera out of her maternity dress pocket and quickly took a picture of them both, the flash from the camera damn near blinding them.

"Uh...ma'am?" He heard Steve start to say when the woman cut him off.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to blind the two of you, come in. Come in." She said as she ushered them both into the apartment and then quietly shut the door.

"M-Ma'am? Are we at the right apartment? We're looking for someone named-"

"Ichigo. I heard you. But unfortunately she's spent all night in the hospital-"

"What?!" Bucky all but shouted as Steve frowned over at him and reached out and calmly placed a hand over his mouth to shut him up.

"If you don't mind my asking, ma'am. What happened to her?"

"Oh, there was a fire about half a block away. One of the elderly ladies that lived in the other building has a touch of dementia. She couldn't recall the number to nine-one-one, but she recalled Ichigo's number. So she woke Ichigo up at three thirty this morning calling for help."

"O-Oh... I-Is the woman alright?"

"She's fine. Breathed in a little too much smoke and passed out and hit her head before Ichigo kicked her door in and found her. She's in the hospital with a few others for observations."

Reaching up now that he felt a little bit calmer, Bucky removed Steve's hand from his mouth and asked, "Is Ichigo okay?"

"Well, she's a little bit injured..."

"How bad?" Bucky asked, concern warring with anger within him. Dammit he takes one night to talk to Steve about his new girl, and she almost get's herself killed! In a fire no less.

He would have to keep a better eye on his girl in the future.

"Oh...um... I think she said something about one of her arms being fractured and having to have a small cast put on it, some bad bruising- she had some burns on her feet and back- her hair caught on fire a bit so she lost about two- no maybe three inches of it- her hands have second degree burns too. And she also had some glass stuck in her feet because she ran out of here without her shoes. Aside from all of those though, she's fine. She called a little while ago to tell me that she'd be home in a few minutes. She wanted someone here just in case you two showed up early, so she isn't canceling your date. She just asks that you be patient a little bit longer."

"Uh..."

"Oh! I'm sorry! I forgot to tell you two to have a seat!" She said as she motioned for them both to sit down. Both men just stared at her in comical disbelief as she meandered off to the kitchen. Probably for a snack.

The two men exchanged uneasy looks but slowly seated themselves on the couch as the woman came back with several things in hand- one of them was a bowl of chips and a small thing of dip, and the rest were bottled waters, soda's and a two beers.

She set the two beers down on the coffee table in front of them and smiled as she meandered over to a recliner and seated herself in it.

"Sorry, I'm know that it's rude to eat in front of people without offering them something, but I'm all kinds of hungry and this is like the tenth time I've had to eat something. My son is driving me all kinds of crazy wanting some food that Ichigo made." She took a bite of a chip with some sort of dip on it and then sighed. "She's an awesome cook. In fact her cooking is all I craved for the first three months of my pregnancy. Thank god my husband and I don't live too far from here of every time I called Ichigo up in the middle of the night for food- she and Uryu _both_ would have strangled me."

Steve smiled in amusement and Bucky simply watched her closely for a moment before asking, "How far along are you?"

"About eight months. Give or take."

"And you're going to have a boy?" Steve asked, his blue eyes lighting up.

"Yup. Already got a name for him and everything. Plus, he's being named after his godmother."

Both men choked for a second before asking incredulously, "You're naming your son after his godmother?"

"Hey! I'll have you know that Ichigo is a nice gender neutral name. Ichigo's name is spelled out to mean, number one guardian. So that's what she grew up being. And I'm hoping that we name our boy after her, he'll grow up to be just as good as she is." She said as she patted her stomach affectionately as the door opened and Ichigo staggered in and dropped her wallet onto the table inside of the door and then kicked the door closed with her foot, wincing a bit as she did so.

"Hey Hime," She called out before turning around and quickly spying Bucky and Steve sitting on her couch. "And Bucky, and his mysterious friend Steve. You're...right on time," She said tiredly as she meandered over to where the woman was sitting, and leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before then putting one of her injured hands on her stomach and saying, "He's going to be coming within the next week or so."

"Don't be doing you're fortune teller _hoo-doo_ on my baby." Hime said in mock outrage before Ichigo stuffed a chip in her mouth and then slowly backed off.

"He's impatient, Hime. As much as he loves being in your...uh...stomach- he's growing impatient to join the world... Damn, I have to reheat the food now, don't I?" Ichigo muttered with a frown.

"Speaking of you're dinner- I did what you asked and only raided your cabinets three times. I want some fish to take home."

Ichigo rolled her eyes at the other woman and huffed out a small laugh as she moved away from the chair. "Yeah, okay. A deal is a deal. I'll go and start re heating the food." Ichigo said as she turned to go into the kitchen when Bucky jumped up and quickly said,

"I'll help." Startling both of the women a little bit as he then said, "You're injured, doll. You don't need to be on your feet any longer than necessary. Plus your arm is hurt too. You may not be able to lift some stuff without hurting yourself further."

"He has a point Ichigo," Hime said as she tilted her head back to look at her friend. "Plus you've been on your feet most of the night- if not all of it- so you need to rest a bit."

"Alright. But no eating anything before it's all laid out."

Bucky merely gave Ichigo a small smile, relieved that she was back home and he could see her and she didn't seem to be in too much pain from her injuries- just really wore out after the nights chaotic events.

Following her into the kitchen, Bucky let her go over to the fridge before he snuck up behind her and wound his arms around her waist. She squeaked as he slipped his arms around her and pulled her back tight against his front as he captured both of her wrists in his hands and took a moment to study the somewhat red stained gauze bandages wrapped around them.

"You're bleeding sweetness." He said softly, his tone concerned.

"I probably need the bandages changed." She said in a soft tone.

"I can rewrap them for you if you want."

"That's fine. I just want to get this stuff out so that they can be reheated first."

"Are you hurting anywhere?"

"Just my feet mostly. Uryu- er Hime's husband, drove me home and went to pick up my medicines from the pharmacy for me. He'll be back soon to drop them off and take Hime home since she doesn't need to be walking home when she's so close to her due date."

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and then reluctantly released her for a moment. Not long, just long enough for her to step away a bit giving him the opening he needed to spin her around and press her back against the fridge. "You scared me, doll. I came here with Stevie expecting you to be here- and when Hime told us that you were in the hospital- I just about lost my shit."

"I'm sorry."

He snorted at her unrepentant expression before gently saying, "No you aren't. You may be sorry that you worried me and didn't even bother to _text_ or _call_-" She actually cringed at his tone. Which had subtly changed from a soft tone to a soft growl. "But you aren't actually sorry for helping those people. And as pissed as I am that you didn't send me a message or something. I can't be angry with you for helping people on the fly. I can however be furious with you for allowing yourself to get hurt."

"Sorry."

_"Uh-huh." _

"I am. Really. I didn't even _know_ that I had forgotten my phone until one of the old men dropped from a heart attack as soon as I'd gotten him out of the building," She sounded a little bit pissed at herself at that moment. Her tone took the heat right out of him. Leaving him unable to feel anything but concern for his gal. "I didn't have time to think about calling or texting you that something was wrong. I didn't have time to call for help before I left. I didn't even know what to really expect when I got there. Do you know what it's like to hear people burn to death because their trapped in a fucking building and they can't get out? _I do._ I remember the smell of their flesh. I remember their screams. I can even tell you how long they lasted before they finally..." Her eyes glazed over with unshed tears and she pressed the back of a shaky hand to her mouth.

"Shit," Bucky muttered as he reached out and pulled her into his arms and just held her since he didn't know what else to do. "I'm sorry baby doll. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you..." He said softly as buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed.

He didn't know how long they stood like that, but it was apparently long enough to catch Steve's attention since he got up and politely excused himself from Hime's presence to come and check on them.

He barely made it into the kitchen before he saw that something was wrong with Ichigo and looked at Bucky questioningly. "Is she okay Buck?"

"No. No I don't think that she is."

"Uh-oh," Hime's voice chimed in as she appeared from behind Steve. "I'll go get the cats. They'll help to calm her down." The woman said as she turned and left. Returning a few moments later with both of Ichigo's feline friends in tow.

The second that the black cat saw Bucky, he peeled his lip back from his teeth in a silent snarl. Indicating that he was on his shit list for making his human momma cry before he jumped up on the counter and meowed loudly to get her attention. And when that didn't work, the cat reached out with a paw and used it to practically tap her on the arm until she turned her head to look at him.

He meowed again as the little blue eyed Siamese jumped up to join him.

Ichigo held an arm out to the two and Bucky and Steve watched in amazement as both cats quickly scaled her arm and latched on to her shoulder and her arm and began nuzzling her and purring loudly as Ichigo muttered tiredly, "I'm okay babies. I'm okay. Bucky's taking care of me."

The black cat stopped purring just long enough to shoot a weird look at Bucky as the little Siamese climbed off of Ichigo and then climbed onto him and settled herself on his shoulder and began purring in his ear and nuzzling his jaw affectionately as he just stood there and watched his gal carefully.

He didn't really know it, but Steve was doing the same.

* * *

A short time later, Bucky managed to talk Ichigo into sitting down in the living room with her cats, and taking a load off while he, Steve and Hime reheated the food and took care of everything in the kitchen.

In actuality the purpose of making her leave the kitchen where her friend still was, served two very different purposes. Actually having her rest until the food was done reheating, and information gathering.

He and Steve had been around long enough to know what symtoms of PTSD looked like.

And though his gal had obviously had a rough time of things in her young life, he didn't really know if it was normal for someone her age to suffer from PTSD episodes without having been through incredibly traumatic events. The only real trauma's that he was now aware of was her mother's murder, killing her mother's killer, and some fire where people burned alive.

And while each of those was horrible and terrifying in their own way. He wasn't sure if they were enough to cause her to have an episode.

So while he and Steve went about pulling the fish and stuff out of the fridge while Hime directed them from where she sat. He simply couldn't resist asking his questions.

"I didn't know that Ichigo suffered from PTSD episodes." He started, cautiously. Not wanting to clue Hime in to what he was doing.

"Hn. Yeah. She's been suffering from them for years. She's supposed to go to therapy and stuff but she refuses to go. So instead she has meds. Anti depressants, sleeping pills and a few other things. She's supposed to take them daily. But she doesn't. I think the only real meds she even bothers with are her heart medicine, and stomach pills. Maybe a pain pill here or there occasionally- she doesn't like them much since they can be addictive."

"D-Do you know what started it? I mean, Bucky told me about her ma..."

"That wasn't what started it. Frankly I'm a little bit surprised that neither of you have figured her out yet," Hime said as she propped herself up on the island as she watched them move around her friends kitchen. "I mean, even I can tell that the two of you are military men. The way that you move, you're mannerisms, sometimes even the way that you speak- it's all a dead give away."

"Huh?" Both men said at once as they both froze up for a moment. _Just what the hell did that mean?_ They both wondered as Hime then pointed to Bucky and said,

"You move like Ichigo does sometimes. The need for utter silence is deeply ingrained in you. Which goes a long way towards telling of what you've seen and done while in the military. You were on the front line. Probably as a sniper and intel gatherer. But something tells me that there's more to you're story than just that. Blondie here, he moves very quietly sometimes. His actions are less calculated than your own. He's cautious. But not like you are. Which makes me think that you were an assassin at some point."

Bucky went pale as the pot of water in Steve's hand slipped from his grasp and hit his foot before spilling it's contents all over the floor as the man yelped and jumped around on one foot eliciting a small laugh from Hime before she simply said, "Ichigo never wanted to fight. She was _forced_ into it by circumstances beyond her control. But she's made a lot of good friends. And saved far more people than even she realizes. She hated killing. She hated the bloodshed and the innocent people that always seemed to suffer by getting caught in the crossfire. She finally had enough of it and forced the higher ups to retire her- at weapon point- with the rank of a General."

"Not many people can accomplish what she has. And while she's retired officially, _unofficially_ she can be called on to serve again if necessary."

Finally Steve managed to stop jumping around and bent to pick up the pot that he'd dropped as he said, "She's twenty two right? She would have had to be eighteen before-"

"No."

"Huh?"

"Eighteen is the required age to join up here in America. Japan is totally different. Under certain circumstances a person can be drafted as young as thirteen. Ichigo was dragged into it when she was barely fifteen. She retired at eighteen. Now mind you she didn't have any formal military training. She was simply signed up and handed a weapon and thrown to the wolves." Both men gaped at Hime in horror. "She retired at eighteen. After fighting several terrorist organization's, three wars, foiling five assassination attempts on government officials and Japanese royalty. Stopping at least two would be global nuclear disasters..."

"Holy shit." Bucky muttered in a dazed tone. Hime merely nodded her head.

"Yeah, I always thought that too. Every time she dragged me, my hubby and our other friends along for the ride."

"Wait- She dragged you along with her? But aren't you a civilian?" Steve asked as he looked the woman over again.

"Meh. Not really. My husband and I both have medical knowledge as well as combat experience. So we were the ones who put Chad and Ichigo back together whenever they got hurt. But neither of us were allowed to really fight on the front line with them. So when Ichigo finally retired, the rest of us did too. And though each of us is recognized for our achievements, Ichigo is the _only_ one that the government would call back to action. Her skills are far too specific to simply ignore."

Both men just stared at her as they tried to wrap their minds around what she'd just told them as the door opened and a man's voice called out, "Hime! I'm here to take you home."

Excitement flitted across the woman's face for a second as she turned and called out, "In here Uryu!" As a young man entered the kitchen barely a minute or so later and glanced over at Bucky and Steve before dismissing them both and walking over to Hime and leaning down to give the woman a kiss.

"Hello my Hime," He said with a smile. Hime grinned at him for a second as he placed a white paper bag on the island in front of her before then glancing at Bucky and Steve again and whispering, "Which one is the boyfriend?"

"The brunette." Hime mock whispered back causing Steve to snort as he placed the refilled pot in his hands on the stove.

"I see," Was all that the woman's husband said before stepping away from her and moving over to Bucky and holding his hand out for him to shake as he said, "Hello. I'm Hime's husband Uryu Ishida. I'm Ichigo's older cousin."


	8. Chapter 8

**Trying to blend as much of Ichigo's time as a Soul Reaper with some other stuff. Trying to pass her off as a normal former 'military' person and make it sound believable and 'convincing-ish'. **

**She does have PTSD episodes. Heart issues, and so on. She was adopted by the Kuchiki and Shiba clans as mentioned below. One did so to help the Shiba's better protect her from those who would seek to use her for political gain.**

**The cats are therapy animals that I based on two of my grandkitties. **

**Raphael- the mean black cat that hates Bucky. (Don't worry, he warms up to him eventually)**

**And Stormy- though I wrote her as a simaese because it's almost the one year anniversary of her mom, Gale's death. And Gale, _was_ a siamese. **

**Bucky and Ichigo will continue to be awkward for alittle bit longer but will inevitably grow closer. So- be patient for me.**

* * *

Bucky just stood there for a second with a weird deer-caught-in-the-headlight look on his face as Uryu turned to Hime and asked her to kindly vacate the kitchen. The woman cast the men a funny look for a moment and then shrugged her shoulders and slowly climbed out of her seat and meandered into the living room to sit with Ichigo.

"So, I feel that all of us should have a little chat about you dating my baby cousin." The man said as he slowly dropped his hand, seeing as Bucky was a bit too freaked out to bother shaking his hand at the moment.

Steve cast Bucky an uneasy look and began to glance towards the living room, wondering if maybe he should vacate the kitchen as well. For safety reasons, of course. However Uryu merely cast him a glance and said in an authoritative, "_Stay_ _put_. You're in this too; whether you like it or not."

Killing Steve's plans to flee the room.

Now there wasn't much in the world that could frighten Steve and Bucky. But for some weird reason neither of them could even bother to possibly explain, being in the same room with Ichigo's older cousin flat out frightened them both.

Uryu was obviously a man who had seen and experienced some hardcore shit.

Probably just as much if not even more than Ichigo herself had.

Though neither man could actually say that with a hundred percent certainty. The little bit about Ichigo that Hime had managed to tell them about the woman's past in the Japanese military left things _both_ somewhat vague and detailed all at once.

"Okay, so- you have questions about my cousin." It wasn't a question, merely a statement of fact. _Shit!_ Did he know that they had been pumping Hime for information? The man gave them both a little knowing smile and Steve felt his eyes almost bug out of his head.

_Crap, crap, crap- he knew!_ Steve thought in a slight panic as Bucky finally seemed to shake off his funk and slowly nodded his head. "Uh, yeah. She had a little PTSD episode-" Bucky started to explain and was suddenly cut off by the other man demanding to know how bad it was and then listing how to gauge how bad the episode had been.

Apparently Ichigo _crying_ was considered a ten. On the one to ten scale.

Whereas having her attempting suicide was somehow, _weirdly_, considered to be a six.

Which made absolutely no sense whatsoever to Steve. After all, suicide attempts were bad. And if she were prone to them then maybe Bucky should let her be and find someone else to date. But Bucky seemed to understand the reasons behind it some. Or at least that was the impression that he gave Steve.

The moment that Bucky mentioned that she had cried, the other man practically choked on his own tongue before hissing out, "Shit. I was kidding. You mean that she actually _cried_?"

Both men just nodded their heads, not knowing what else to do. Causing Uryu to sigh and glance towards the living room in concern before muttering, "Fuck me. That_ is_ bad. I've seen Ichigo get run through the heart by an metal pipe before and not even cry once. And I know that that shit had to hurt. Especially given how _pissed_ she looked about the whole thing."

"By the way- if you stick around long enough for the two of you to fall into bed. Kindly _don't_ get her pregnant right off the bat. She's going to be having a heart transplant surgery at the end of the year. A pregnancy would put more strain on her than absolutely needed. And force the surgery to be pushed back more than she can afford. And there's always the high chance that she'd loose the baby too."

"Thanks for the heads up." Was all that Bucky could think to say as the man thinned his lips for a moment and then turned and opened the fridge and pulled out a soda and then sat down and looked at the two expectantly as he waited for them to ask him stuff.

"So... Ichigo is former military?"

"Former special forces actually," Uryu corrected automatically before then saying, "We all were. Her, Chad, Hime and myself."

"And she retired at eighteen with the rank of a General?" Steve asked, feeling the insane need to confirm everything.

"Officially, yes."

"Hime said that she forced the higher ups to retire her..." Bucky started to say when Uryu snorted out a laugh and said in a slightly gleeful tone,

"God yes. She made an absolute and utter _nuisance_ of herself when they first refused to let her retire. They decided that she was much too good to let her go for any reason short of actual death. So one day while the higher ups were all gathered together to conduct a meeting about where next to send her- Ichigo kicked the door in, walked in dragging several of the Captains, beaten, bloody and unconscious behind her, and _tossed_ them at the guy in charge of everything and then put a sword to his throat and told him that she was _done_ doing their damned dirty work."

"She'd fought long enough to fix their stupid mistakes. In the years since she had been forced to join, they had come to rely on her far to much to clean up after them. She flat out told them all that she wasn't their damned mother and that they needed to really start cleaning up after themselves for once. Barely a minute or so after she announced that she was done working for them- two of the present noble's from separate houses stepped forward and formally claimed her as one of them."

"The house of Kuchiki, if one of the five noble clans. Incredibly powerful, and very well respected. The current head of the clan had developed an affection for Ichigo due to her services along side himself and his younger sister. So he adopted her as one of his clansmen- which is practically unheard of for an outsider. And made her an heiress and princess of his clan. The second clan to claim her, was the clan of Shiba. Which is maybe a little bit more powerful and influential than the Kuchiki. Though actual bonds of blood. Ichigo about six months or so after retiring, was made into the _current_ head of the Shiba clan since the former head of the clan stepped down for unknown reasons."

"Once the two clans had stepped in and interfered, Ichigo couldn't be sent to the front lines anymore unless there were very specific circumstances at play. So the higher up had _no_ choice but to retire her. And though they were pissed about losing her as a soldier- They granted her the rank of General- since she had unofficially been acting as one for well over three years- and gave her nice send off."

"She got a big fat check of about seven point six million dollars, inherited six- no I think it was closer to...eight clan properties- from both the Kuchiki's and the Shiba's. The former head of the Shiba clan put aside a nice sized dowry for when she marries and has kids. And also from the two clans, Ichigo gained a _huge_ frigging extended family of people that are_ totally_ crazy about her."

Both men were gaping at Uryu who was sniggering in his seat as Steve turned to Bucky and simply said in disbelief, "Leave it to you to find one of the most complicated people in the world to want to settle down with."

Causing Bucky to bristle slightly at him and growl out, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" As Uryu started to flat out laugh at them both now.

"A heiress/princess Bucky- you snagged yourself a heiress/princess of not one, but _two_ Japanese noble families. One that has the ranking of a General and served in the military since she was a young teenager."

"Yeah- So?" Bucky said in a harsh tone as Steve just shook his head and said in a slightly awed tone.

"Nothing. I'm...just impressed that's all."

"That's not that impressive," Uryu finally sobered up enough to say before then tacking on. "Just wait until some asshole somewhere decided to kidnap her to hold her for ransom or something. I'll give you _all_ of the names and phone numbers of the people that you can call for help- Just call them up, and tell them that Ichigo's in trouble, and I can guarantee you that not only will a small army show up on your doorstep, armed to the teeth. But she'll be returned within an hour and thirty minutes of being taken,_ unharmed_. And her kidnappers will practically _run_ to turn themselves in to the police after giving you both a formal apology."

"I only have one more question," Steve said before then awkwardly asking, "Does she have a sister?"

"Sure. Two of them. But they've both just started college. So if you want to live, I suggest staying as far from them as humanly possible. Although... Hime has a single friend that's really nice. I have a picture of her on my phone- just a second..." Uryu said as he dug out his phone and found the pic that he was looking for and then held his phone out for Steve to see as Uryu said, "Her name is Tatsuki. She and Ichigo were Hime's unofficial protectors growing up. She's a black belt in karate and is Japan's second strongest martial artist."

Steve's eyes flickered up from the image of the exotic beauty as he muttered, "Just second?"

"Well yeah. Ichigo is the number one ranked fighter in all of Japan. It's a position that she's held since she was fifteen. By the way- you guys are burning Ichigo's food."

_"Huh?!" _

* * *

Ichigo was partially dozing on the couch with her cats curled up on her lap and her chest purring when she heard Hime say in a dismayed tone, "I'll be damned, I think the boys burned your food."

Causing Ichigo to crack an eye open and mutter tiredly, "Those bastards. Here's a shoe, bludgeon them to death for me." As she handed Hime one of her discarded slippers and then dozed back off again as Hime looked down at the slipper and then glared at her.

"Well... You'll be no help at all."

"Tired. _Don't. Care_." Ichigo muttered as she rested her chin back on Stormy's back causing the little Siamese to wiggle a little bit before settling back down.

Hime huffed. "Well they better not have burned all of it. I want fish. Not Cajun style cooking," Ichigo said something inaudible causing the other woman to roll her eyes at her and mutter, "With an attitude like yours it's a wonder you didn't manage to snag a boyfriend before now, Ichigo."

Ichigo muttered the words, 'Bludgeon' and 'Death' under her breath, causing Hime to heave a sigh and slowly get up out of her chair with the slipper in hand.


	9. Chapter 9

A short time later, Hime had her fish and was being ushered out the apartment door singing to herself, "Yay! Fish-fish!" Leaving both Steve and Bucky standing, oddly frozen where they stood, gaping at the door as it quietly closed behind her and her husband- in utter shock/comical horror.

"D-Did she just-" Steve finally managed to stammer out, as if he still didn't quite understand what had just happened to them both as Bucky helpfully supplied.

"Assault us both with a slipper to 'bludgeon us to death' on Ichigo's order's."

"Yeah that."

"Yes. Yes she did."

"Pregnant women are _weird_."

"No weirder than my dozing girlfriend somehow managing to give her marching orders... I wonder if that's what she really said?" Bucky said in a totally bewildered tone.

"I'm scared to wake her up to ask, Steve confessed after a moment or so as he craned his neck to peer into the living room where he could plainly see Ichigo slumped over slightly in her seat. "Do you think we should wake her up anyways and feed her? Or is your date ruined?"

"I think...raincheck maybe?" Bucky said with a sigh as he looked down at the reheated fish that they had laid out. "I guess we can see if she has some tupperware that we can use to get some of this to go."

"Do you think that we should at least move her to her bedroom or something? Uh...maybe make her more comfortable?" Steve asked fretfully as Bucky opened his mouth to say something when her phone rang. Quickly snapping his mouth shut, he cast a worried look in Ichigo's direction and then moved to answer her phone before the ringing could wake her.

Picking up the phone, he was somewhat surprised to hear Uryu's voice n the other end of the line since the man had just left with his wife mere minutes before. Uryu said something about Ichigo not staying alone while she was injured and Bucky found himself forming a new plan to get to spend more time with his new girlfriend.

So after assuring his gal's cousin that he would stay with her for the next few days, he cast Steve a cautious glance, catching the curious look that his punk was giving him. Though he didn't bother to actually try and actually say anything.

He could see that Bucky's mind was made up. And once his mind was made up- there was no changing it.

Once Bucky hung up the phone, Steve finally said, "Are you sure that you want to do this? You're relationship is still new- something like this could considered overstepping some bounds and break you up."

"She's injured Stevie," Bucky pointed out gently. "She's injured and her cousin doesn't think that she should be alone for the next few days. What if she develops an infection? A fever? What if she needs to go back to the hospital? Her feet and hands have to hurt her something awful. Did you not _see_ the way that she winced when she walked in?"

Steve huffed quietly and just shook his head at him. An bemused smile curving his lips.

Bucky had always been the caretaker type. So the fact that he wanted to stay in close proximity to the woman and care for her while injured was something that he _should_ have expected.

Then again, once he had heard about the fire- he should have known that she would be hurt. He just hadn't realized that she was hurt quite as bad as she was. And though her injuries seemed okay for now, maybe due to some sort of meds already in her system, there was no telling how they would be later tonight or even in the morning.

He knew that she would likely be in pain in another hour or so- so it was understandable really, Bucky's reluctance to leave her to fend for herself.

"Alright, what do you need me to do?" He asked once he had several tupperware containers laid out on the island.

"Would you mind watching her for me while I go back to the tower and grab an overnight bag?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

Bucky smiled at him knowing that no further conversation was needed. A short while later, Bucky left Ichigo's apartment carrying Steve's dinner in hand while he made his way, as quickly as he could back to the tower to grab what he would need.

Leaving his poor punk to the not-quite-so-tender-mercies of Ichigo's black cat. Which upon his leaving the apartment, had jumped down from his gal's lap and latched itself onto Steve's leg, eliciting a yelp from the man that _still_ had Bucky chuckling even now.

Once he was finally back at the tower, he went straight up to his room after dropping off Steve's food and quickly grabbed several days worth of clothing, and other necessities before then leaving again. He was back at Ichigo's apartment in twenty minutes tops.

Upon walking into his gal's home, he paused in the doorway upon finding his punk lying on the floor with the Siamese sitting on his chest daintily licking one of her paws while her mean long furred brother was weirdly MIA. When he heard Steve say, "Careful Bucky- they can smell fear!"

Causing Bucky to merely roll his eyes and quietly close the apartment door behind him as he walked over to where Stevie lay, and reached out to gently pluck the small Siamese up off of his punk and then seated himself in the recliner that Hime had claimed as her very own while she had been there and set the small cat in his lap and petted her.

"Were you showing my buddy the proper way to wrestle, pretty girl?" He asked in a half teasing tone as he scratched the cat under the chin as Steve slowly sat up.

"Yes. She was. And she's frighteningly good at it. Do you think that Ichigo will let us take her home with us to cat sit sometime?" Steve asked in a huff before then saying evilly. "It might be worth it to see Tony run screaming through the halls."

Bucky just grinned at him and scratched the cat under the chin a little bit more as he said, "Did momma teach you some tricks, pretty girl?"

"She definitely taught her something." Steve snorted in amusement as the cat merely tilted her head back and closed her blue eyes and purred for his friend.

"Of course she did," Bucky cooed at the cat. "Her momma is the awesomest kitty cat trainer there is."

"Those video's on your phone say otherwise."

Bucky cast a mean look at Steve and then calmly picked the cat up and then deposited her on top of Steve's head out of spite. The cat's tiny claws dug into Steve's scalp as the cat started to knead his head with her tiny paws when Bucky asked. "How is my girl? She wake up any?"

"I think she might have cracked an eye open a little while ago to see what I and the cats were up too when I really started to make some noise. But not much else."

"Hn. I stuck you're dinner in your fridge."

"Thanks... Will you be okay here?"

"I should be. I'll call if anything happens."

"Okay. Now you wanna get Ichigo's furry companion off of me so that I can leave."

"If I must." Bucky said before then reaching out and removing the cat from Steve's head. Causing the feline to huff in irritation at being removed from a comfy spot again. Once on the floor, the aggrieved feline cast the two men a funny look and then meandered over to where Ichigo was now lying on her side and jumped up on her and curled up around her shoulder as Steve picked himself up off of the floor and quietly said his goodbyes and then left.

Barely two seconds after he left, the apartment door opened a sliver and Uryu peeked back in causing Bucky to frown somewhat. "I thought that you went home."

"I did," The dark haired man said as he quietly slipped into the apartment and then motioned Bucky over with his hand. Once Bucky was up and across the room Uryu then explained in a whisper tone. "I just came by to see if you would need help to give her a bath and stuff. I know that you two are dating now- but it's sort of..._early_ in the relationship to be seeing my cousin naked."

"I was also going to move the coffee table and the recliner and see if you wanted to help me drag Ichigo's mattress off of her bed, and bring it in here. It's sort of a habit of hers when she's feeling any pain or just plain crummy. Plus since you're staying it will give you someplace more comfortable to sleep than the couch and stuff."

"Oh..." To be perfectly honest having Ichigo bathe hadn't even occurred to him. So he was somewhat grateful that her cousin had returned. "W-Wouldn't it be better to have another dame help her?"

"Dunno. I'm not sure that she knows any other women in the immediate area aside from Hime. And she can't do it."

"Oh, right." Bucky said as he cast a small glance towards Ichigo and then back at Uryu. "I'm...not one hundred percent comfortable with a guy giving my girlfriend a bath." He finally said after a moment or so.

"You'd have to be an idiot to be absolutely comfortable with me helping in that capacity. I'm not even comfortable with it. But it needs to be done if she's going to keep from getting infections in the lacerations on her feet. She needs them cleaned regularly. Plus, I'm a doctor, so as weird as this will be for me- I've done it before a few times and know what needs to be done."

"Oh, right- I think that I forgot about that."

"No problem. Has she woken up enough to bother eating anything?"

"No."

"She'll do that later then. Let's get our work out of the way and then you can settle in, alright."

It took less that forty five minutes to do everything. Bathing Ichigo. Getting her hands and feet taken care of and medicated and then rewrapped. Moving the furniture and then dragging her mattress off of her bed and settling it in the living room floor where the cats were already claiming areas of the mattress.

While Bucky sat on the couch waiting for Uryu to finish helping Ichigo get dressed again since neither of them had really been able to wake her.

Once the man finally opened the bathroom door and peeked out, Bucky was up and moving again. This time making his way to the bathroom so that he could pick his girl up in his arms and carry her back to the living room and gently set her down on the mattress and fussed over her for a moment or so, making sure that she had enough pillows and blankets to keep her warm before then getting up and rejoining Uryu.

The man was holding some pill bottles and a couple of numbing and antibiotic creams for her burns and other injuries. He took several moments to explain the pain pills and how she needed to use them, the creams and Ichigo's heart meds and what to do if she at any point seemed to have trouble breathing or catching her breath.

Once he was done, he then gave Bucky his cell number and his work number just in case he needed to get a hold of him one way or another and then quietly bid him goodnight and then left.

Leaving Bucky to his own devices for a while.

Which was fine. He wandered around from room to room for a little bit, checking out the lay out of his girl's apartment. She had a nice place. It was probably a little bit bigger than his own at the tower. But only just so. The apartment had three bedrooms, and two bathrooms in total.

One of the bedrooms had some children's toys and such in it. Bucky assumed that it was for when she would be babysitting Hime and Uryu's son. Which was not only adorable, but gave the man all kinds of ideas about her one day being a mother to his own kids.

He could easily see her in the near future, wearing maternity clothing, her stomach swollen with their child. Craving strange foods. Forcing him out of bed at three and four a.m. to tiredly shuffle off to go and get her stuff from the grocery store and get her what she was craving.

She didn't seem like she'd be the 'simple' craving kind of gal.

So instead of pickles and iced cream- what if she wanted tuna, mint ice cream, hamburger meat, a crap ton of onions, horseradish, and hot sauce? He'd probably hide himself away once she started eating it. Just so he wouldn't have to imagine such horrible food combinations.

And he may definitely not kiss her until she brushed her teeth.

But he would be happy as long as she and the baby were healthy.

Moving on, he found a guest bedroom. The bed was neatly made, the sheets and such were freshly washed. But the dresser was empty of everything but some odds and ends for hygiene purposes. There was some stuff for women and men both.

And though he was curious, he filed the information away for a later date and then moved on.

He'd already seen the inside of her bathroom and the master bedroom. Both were spacious, and incredibly nice. Though a bit lacking in feminine charm.

There were few pictures. Some were of Ichigo. And some were of her and her family and friends.

Walking over to her sink, he checked the drawers and such for a moment. Noting that the only make-up that she had was lip gloss and some eye shadow and blush. Nothing more. She didn't even have any fingernail polish.

Leaving the bathroom he then moved to the master bedroom noting that she had a small vanity against the far wall. There were maybe one or two small glass bottles of perfume. One was peony and pear blossom scented, and the other was white tea and orange blossom scented.

There were small-ish jars of lotion that were some of her hand made items. One was labeled peony. And other Iris. And another rose sandalwood.

If he were a guessing man, he would guess that anything with _peony_ in it was her favorite.

She also had a small wooden and mother of pearl inlay jewelry box that upon being opened, he could plainly see, pearls- not pink or black- but a pristine white with a pinkish and purple sheen to them, necklace and earring set. She had a few rings. Only two of them were diamond and gold.

Everything else was sterling silver. Either plain sterling silver or sterling silver with jade, or garnet or some sapphires. She had no religious jewelry whatsoever. Even any to wear as a sort of fashion statement.

Not that he minded. He'd given up his religion long ago.

Her closet was lacking anything in dresses and skirts unless one counted her weird collection of sweater dresses.

She literally had three navy blue ones, three mint green, three red ones, and so on. All of them were her favorite colors. And were labeled. Labeled for fuck's sake.

Each one held a label with a day and date on it.

Apparently she liked to know what she was going to wear ahead of time. Which wasn't bad. Just a little bit...well, a little bit disappointing. Didn't twenty two year old gals like flaunting their nice bodies?

His gal literally had nothing that showed off her long beautiful legs- no skirts, or short shorts- nothing but jeans and cotton leggings.

Nothing that showed off her nice figure because everything that she owned was baggy.

She had nothing that would allow a teasing glimpse of the gentle mounds of her breasts, the flatness of her stomach- hell it was a wonder that she didn't simply dress as a nun and be done with it.

Still, despite her obvious lack of sexy clothing, and as slightly frustrating as he found that since he couldn't ask her to doll herself up so he could take her out- at the same time, he kind of _liked_ not knowing what was under her clothing. He especially liked knowing that other men didn't know either.

In fact that kind of outweighed his own frustration.

He didn't bother touching her dresser. That was simply a line he wasn't willing to cross under any circumstances. Besides, he wanted to wait until he had her permission to go through it before he actually did.

Come to think of it, he needed to leave her room _now_ before he got himself in trouble.

The last thing that he wanted was for Ichigo to wake up and find him creeping about being...well, kind of a creep. After all, being kind of a creep was a good way to lose one's girlfriend.

Slowly leaving the bedroom, he silently closed the door behind him after quickly checking to make sure that he wasn't accidentally closing one of the cats up in there and upon returning to the living room, decided to reheat some food and eat.

The food was better than he'd anticipated. Everything was cooked to perfection. So much so that for a little while, Bucky felt as if he were eating food from a five star restaurant. Once he finished eating, he put everything else up. Fed his gal's (ungrateful and vicious) cats some cat food and a couple of pieces of shrimp and two catfish nuggets each.

And then returned to the living room to settle himself on the mattress next to Ichigo, in a sitting position so that he could watch a little bit of TV before trying to go to sleep. He'd been sitting there for almost a half hour just watching some movie that he'd found when Ichigo turned over and settled her head on his upper thigh and wrapped her arms around his waist.

He jumped a little bit at the contact, having not been expecting it, but then settled back down and placed his metal hand on the top of her head and began slowly brushing his fingers through her long hair. She stirred for a moment and cracked an eye open and looked at him for a second and then tiredly apologized for ruining their date and then started to doze back off again as he just smiled indulgently down at her.

She didn't ruin their date. Not really. If anything, circumstances had led to the extension of their date. But she wasn't up to finding that out just yet.

Maybe once she finally woke up some, he'd tell her that he would be staying for the next few days.

"Sleep tight doll." He said softly as he finally turned the TV off and slowly untangled himself from her grasp just long enough to actually lay down. Kissing her on the forehead, he settled himself and then carefully arranged her body so that she was comfortably resting with her head on his shoulder and then closed his eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

Strangely, Bucky somehow managed to sleep almost all night uninterrupted. For once, there were no nightmares. No hellish visions of blood, and death, and himself standing over countless innocent people. He slept from two a.m. all the way up until almost seven.

When he finally rolled over and became totally aware on some level, that there was a noticeable absence of another body. Reaching out absently, his face marred by a confused frown, he ran his hand along the slightly cool space where he'd left his girlfriend when he'd closed his eyes a while ago. Noting that she was definitely missing from the comfort of their make shift bed.

Cracking an eye open, he took a quick moment to cast a curious glance around his surroundings. Noting that one of the cats was eyeing him oddly while something small, and _evil_ was gnawing on his foot with tiny little sharp teeth.

Lifting his head up a little bit, he could plainly see the black cat that seemed to hate him for some unknown reason, attempting to cripple him with it's little teeth.

The fur ball was lucky that he hadn't yet flung it across the room. His feet_ were_ ticklish, you know.

Groggily sitting up, and eliciting a weird response from the feline attached to his foot- he took a moment to try and totally gather his bearings as the cat ran _yowling_ like he'd kicked it in the tail or something, from the room. "Doll?" He called out in a raspy tone after a moment or so of hesitating.

Because he didn't know where she was, he had no idea if Ichigo could hear him or even if she was in any state to respond. Gradually becoming more and more worried by the second, Bucky finally flung the blanket off of himself and quickly stood to go search his girl out when he finally heard the faint sound of a fork being laid aside.

And heaved a small sigh as he turned and meandered into the kitchen to see Ichigo sitting at the island, in one of her chairs with a plate of food in front of her and several protein bar wrappers strewn about the island, around her plate.

She must have been sitting there for a little while, given just how messy the small area was.

Plus there was a discarded empty mug of what could have either been tea or coffee. And she had her new laptop computer set up in front of her, and was staring at the screen with a dark scowl on her face for some reason.

"Doll? Everything okay?" He asked as he slowly moved up behind her to kiss her on the cheek and subtly see what she was scowling at.

"Everything is fine." She automatically said in a tired/pain filled tone. The sheer practice it took to respond to his concerns in such a way pissed him off. Because it meant that she was used to hiding her needs.

Maybe it was for what she deemed the 'greater good' from her life before. He didn't care. But that shit wasn't going to fly with him. Especially when he could tell that something _was_ wrong.

Leaning down to brush his lips across her cheek, he let his eyes flicker to the computer screen and narrowed his eyes at the message- **_Legal Action Will Be Taken! You will never work in this town again!_**

Under which she had typed out,

_I don't sleep with cocksucking assholes who feel as if they are entitled to me just because they are successful. Nor will I ever fall into bed with someone stupid enough to harass and threaten me. I've already emailed you're many, many attempts to get me to bend to your will via threats, blackmail, and harassment to my very well paid lawyer. _

_You are finished as an author. And will never write another book that will publish for as long as you live. Also I'm counter suing you for mental anguish. I think everything you have will do the trick._

_And now, asshat- I'm done with you._

Underneath was another message.

_**I will ruin you!**_

Followed by another neatly typed out message from Ichigo.

_I don't negotiate with terrorists. __Further messages will get forwarded to my lawyer and dig yourself deeper. _

_Later- bitch._

"Have you read everything yet?" She asked when he lingered for far longer than he should have. Bucky merely made a thoughtful humming sound and then backed off, finally allowing her to shut down her computer as he moved away from her to busy himself fixing a cup of coffee.

"How long has the asshole been harassing you?"

"Since we met in person and I punched him in the face," She said automatically. He stilled for a moment and then turned his head to give her a curious look from over one of his shoulders as she shrugged her slender shoulders and said in a somewhat defensive tone, "What? He coped a feel after I told him to back the hell off. So I broke his nose."

"You should have broke his hand."

"We were in public. And I had to be as professional as possible. Breaking his nose was far less than he deserved. But I also keyed his new car pretty bad when I left so-"

He snorted and slowly shook his head, his lips twitching in amusement.

"I'm going to have to keep my eyes on you and keep you out of mischief, huh doll."

She shrugged again and simply said, "Never let it be said, that you'll be bored with me. I don't often attack and injure people for any reason. But some people just rub me the wrong way. You know?"

"Hn. _Sleazy._ Self centered. Arrogant assholes. I know the type," Bucky said as he finally finished making his coffee and took a cautious sip. Letting the near scalding liquid burn his mouth a little bit in order to wake himself up a little bit more before then saying, "It's good that you're taking him to task on his shit before he finds another victim or two. But why are you really suing him? You don't seem hard up for the money."

"Before I met the guy face to face, I helped him write and publish ten books. All of which were best sellers. I don't need the credit for the stories or my work in them. But I was drastically underpaid for my work. So I plan to fix that and leave him destitute."

"You're a vicious little thing when you're crossed, huh sweetness."

"I don't like to be. But I usually am. I like leaving a lasting impression on people who cross me. By suing him for every penny he owns, he'll be black listed as a writer. Even if he uses a different pen name- He will_ literally_ never be able to publish anything ever again."

"Harsh. But understandable... Are you in pain?" Bucky finally got around to asking her.

"A little bit. Walking was a total bitch. But a woman has to do what a woman has to do, you know. Besides, I needed to wake up and eat something and use the bathroom anyways."

He made a non committal sound before asking how her hands were. She scrunched up her nose a little bit and then told him that they didn't hurt half as much as she thought that they would. Her main sources of grief thus far were her arm and her feet.

He nodded his head in understanding and took a moment to set his coffee aside and gently take her wrists in his hands and turn her hands over so that he could look at her palms. So far, despite her using them to type on her computer and feed herself, there were no traces of any blood or even more irritation that he could visibly see.

So that was good.

"Have you taken any of your meds yet?" He asked as he slowly released her from his grasp. She shook her head no and he gave her a stern look as he went and got her pills from the living room and brought her what she needed. Placing each of the pills on her plate for her to take and then stood back and waited expectantly.

She picked up the pain pill and handed it back to him, despite his more than displeased look, and simply asked him to break it in half for her before explaining to him that the dose was higher than she was comfortable with. She didn't need to be knocked on her ass and high as a fucking kite for the next few days.

She just needed enough of the medicine in her system to take the edge off. It would still help her rest and such. She would simply be a bit more _aware _than if she took the full dosage. That was all.

"Afraid I'll take advantage of you or something?" He half joked before realizing that that was a little bit of what she was worried about. He froze up for a second as she seemed to catch herself and hastily tried to assure him that that wasn't exactly what she was thinking.

But there was something in her tone and about her reluctance that he picked up on. Her discomfort? Or maybe it was her concern about being drugged up and not in her right mind?

He tried not to let his hurt and upset show in his expression. Especially since he understood that she was just being cautious. She didn't really know him after all. But she must have picked up on his own feelings because the first thing that she did was quickly move from her seat to walk/stumble around the island and hug him.

He blinked a little bit and glanced down at her as she tightened her grip on him and simply said, "It's _not_ you. Really it isn't. I've...had a few...less than _pleasant_ experiences while hopped up on pain meds. I just...don't want anything that can trigger anything for me. That's all." It was only a half lie.

But he sort of understood.

So he took a moment to kiss the top of her head and wrap his own arms around her and say, "S'okay doll. I get it," And took a moment to break the pain pill in half and handed her one part of it and then carefully placed the other half back in the bottle and then closed it and set it aside and slowly said, "You ever want to talk about it..." There was no need to finish the sentence.

He could tell that she understood and appreciated the offer by the way that she smiled at him before she slowly unwound her arms from around him and slowly stumbled back to her previous seat and then took her meds and then sat there and waited as he finally decided to sit down and eat something himself.

Opening the fridge to see what all she had managed to polish off. He was pleasantly surprised- and maybe a little bit _upset_ with her at the same time- for fixing several nice juicy steaks, some omelet's filled with some veggies and cheese and bacon bits, a dozen or so homemade biscuits, and several large porkchops.

"Doll..."

"Yes."

"Did you cook earlier?"

She didn't bother dignifying his question with a response. It didn't matter if she did anyways. He'd caught her red handed.

* * *

Once he finished eating and cleaned up after them both to keep her from doing it. Honestly, he'd never met anyone so damned stubborn about having someone else take care of them. Aside from Steve of course. He'd barely been up an hour and she was already driving him nuts.

And weirdly, he was loving every moment of it.

Once the dishes had been washed and set out to dry, he'd walked around the island and promptly picked his girl up out of her seat and then carried her back into the living room- after a little detour to the bathroom. Where he left her in the room and went to stand outside with the door slightly cracked just in case she needed him for something.

He whistled loudly the entire time that she peed. And while he was doing that, she'd turned on the faucet in the sink to also help drown out any sound she may have made.

It was so awkward that it was damned adorable.

And once she finished up, he kindly picked her back up and took her back to her little 'nest' and settled them both down on the mattress with her in his lap and handed her the TV remote. Claiming that sick and injured people should always get first dibs on the TV remote.

She asked him if there was anything that he wanted to watch. He figured that she was trying to be nice. But since he didn't say anything, she eventually huffed at him and then turned the channel to JTV.

He didn't know what a JTV was at first. But after about an hour or so of watching nothing but women talk none stop while showing off beautiful and glittering gemstones and jewelry- he wanted to maim something.

Preferably someone in charge of that damndable channel.

Though having her ask him for the use of a phone to place some orders was somewhat inevitable. It didn't exactly make him feel any kinder towards the stupid JTV people. Though he did sort of like the smile on her face once she was done placing her order and then set the phone aside with a grin and simply said, "Christmas presents for some of my family and friends. Everything else I can make on my own."

He merely nodded his head in understanding as she finally changed the channel to watch a TV show called, Reba. Which was followed by Last Man Standing.

And laughed at him when he finally sighed in relief at not having to watch JTV again anytime soon. Or at least he hoped not.

The shows Reba, and Last Man Standing were both pretty good. Good enough for him to pull his cell phone out and text Steve to turn on his TV and watch them. He figured that if Steve was okay with it, they'd both buy some box sets and force the others to binge watch both shows with them on their next movie day at the tower.

Once the two shows finally went off, they watched a few horror movies.

One would think that he'd lived through enough horror in his lifetime and then some to be totally turned off of the idea of anything but comedy and action films. But strangely enough, he still liked horror and sci-fi stuff.

Didn't matter if it was a book. A TV show- hell he forced Steve and Clint to watch Supernatural and The Walking Dead TV shows with him often enough- that every time new episodes started they practically _ran_ from him.

As it now stood, Nat and Thor were his new TV show watching buddies. Because only the two of them seemed unbothered when someone died viciously.

They watched the rebooted version of the Day of the Dead, by George Remaro.

The body count was beyond epic.

The Resident Evil movies that came on after weren't half bad either. Granted there were only four of them showing, but they were still damned good. Bucky liked Alice's character. The dame had moxie in spades. She was damned strong too.

At some point after those finally went off, Ichigo turned the channel again, this time finding Monty Python's Flying Circus? He didn't really understand a lot of what was going on there since it was British. But it was pretty funny too.

They had been watching it for about an hour or so when Ichigo finally changed the channel to one that played music. Curious to see what she was going to do now, he just sat there and let her shift her body a little bit so that she was a little bit more comfortable as she called out, "Raphael, Stormy, dance time."

The cats came from two directions all at once, both of them little blurs from the corner of both of his eyes as they ran past him and climbed up onto the mattress and stood side by side as they seemed to wait for something as Ichigo turned up the volume a little bit and then settled back against his chest with a small grin as a song started to play.

It was a song from a hit eighties movie.

The artist was named David Bowie and the name of the song was, Magic Dance.

And it must have been magic alright. Cause those cats _actually_ danced while Ichigo softly sang along to the song happily while he just stared at the two wide eyed, not knowing what else to do aside from pinch himself. Because he had to have fallen asleep or something.

Cause cat's didn't dance. Not in reality anyways.

The cats danced to three different songs. Of course, by this time he had already established that he was indeed still awake. He'd likely have the bruise on his thigh to prove it. And once the cats were done dancing they each crowded around him and his girl seeking pets and praise.

Both of which they had wholly and utterly deserved for dancing.

Bucky managed to pet the black one without getting scratched, thanks to Ichigo's help. But the little fur ball was none too pleased by his human mother's betrayal. Something that he made known with a very loud hiss before he scampered off to parts unknown to either sulk or plot Bucky's untimely death.

Maybe a combination of both. Which made Bucky a little bit nervous and twitchy.

Not long after that, Ichigo finally managed to doze off for a little bit around noon. Which was fine since it gave him a chance to check in with Steve and maybe find something to fix for lunch and dinner.


	11. Chapter 11

The phone finally started ringing at about two pm.

And since Ichigo was still sleeping, Bucky was left to answer it. Of course he regretted that decision almost_ immediately_. Mostly because many of the conversations started like this-

"Hello my darling Ichigo-" _Click. _

Bucky hadn't liked another man referring to his girlfriend as his 'darling' anything. If he ever met the guy face to face, he'd probably snap him in half.

The next conversation went like this.

"Hello Ichigo! Have you finally become a woman-" _Click._ Dear god he'd only answered two calls so far, hung up on _both_ of the callers, and he felt like his eye was already starting to _twitch_ a little bit in annoyance.

The next call was from her dad.

Or at least he assumed so because the man practically whined in his ear- "Ichiiiigooooo! Grandchildren! Grandchildren! I need theeemmmm! If you're having trouble finding someone to sex you up- I know a few people that I can-" **_Clink! _**

Holy shit there was something really,_ really_ wrong with the people that his girl was surrounded by.

The next five calls went much the same way since her dad was a determined bastard and really, _really_ wanted some grandkids. Bucky started to get so pissed by his insistent calls that he actually thought about flying to Japan and hunting the freak down and beating him senseless.

Instead he settled for almost crushing the phone in his hands. Which got him unimpressed and bored looks from both of the cats before he muttered darkly, "You know the both of you could have warned me about this." The black one merely snarled at him. Showing that he didn't care to warn or help him in any manner whatsoever while the Siamese merely licked her one of tiny paws and cleaned behind her ears before then standing up and sauntering off in a feline version of Natasha's _I-do-not-care_ walk.

_The cheeky little beast_. He thought as the cat meandered off before he turned to Blackie and asked in an incredulous tone, "She do this shit to you too?" His only response from the spiteful creature was the fact that he rolled over onto his back and put his feet up in the air and just laid there as if he were dead.

Which wasn't helpful in the least no matter how telling it was.

He continued to hang up on people until finally the more perceptive ones finally stopped calling. And everything seemed normal until...

"Ichigo! This is Tony- what the hell were you doing on the fucking news, young lady! Do I have to come over there and-" Bucky glanced down at the phone slowly. Very slowly.

Was- Was that Starks voice? What the hell was Tony doing calling his girlfriend? He wondered curiously before putting the phone back up to his ear just in time to hear.

"Dammit kid- answer me! Are you okay? Do I need to come over and check on you?" Bucky peeled his lips back from his teeth in a silent snarl. Quietly daring Stark to come on over.

He wasn't getting anywhere near _his_ Ichigo.

The more immature part of him gleefully chanted,_ Finders keepers, finders keepers!_ While the more territorial and possessive part of him demanded blood up until he heard, "You know that I worry about you kid. You're my goddaughter..."

Bucky practically threw the phone across the room then and there.

Her godfather! Tony Stark, most immature person in the world- was his girlfriend's godfather?! _How?_ When? How did the two of them even_ know_ each other?

His mind reeling from the current shock to his mind, he completely missed Ichigo stirring and slowly sitting up to see what he was doing. "Bucky?"

He blinked. But otherwise didn't respond.

To be perfectly honest he couldn't really trust himself too at the moment. He just...felt a little bit overwhelmed. That was all.

After all, he had just learned yesterday that she was former military- retired with the rank of General. Had been adopted by _two_ noble clans. One with blood claims. And the other...for something else entirely. Something that he didn't quite know or understand just yet.

She was an heiress/princess of both clans. The current head and leader of one of them.

She made things- worked as a writer and artist. She helped people who couldn't help themselves. And Tony Stark was her godfather...

There...was something that he was completely missing here. He knew that there was. He just didn't know what. Feeling rather than seeing her, he blinked again and found himself staring down into her eyes. Those beautiful, eerie, neon colored eyes that took his breath away.

They were staring up at him in worry and concern. And it was like a punch to the gut that he put that look in her pretty eyes. That he hadn't responded to her when she'd called for him and it had worried her enough to make her get up.

Finally after a moment or so, he let her pry the phone out of his hands- he was dangerously close to breaking it in his grip anyways. And gently placed it in it's cradle. She didn't ask who had upset him nor why he was upset. She just stood there waiting patiently for him to say something.

"Stark. H-He's your-"

"Godfather. Yes."

"How?"

"He and my dad met in Afghanistan when my dad was helping to organize some hospital and clinic personnel and train new nurses and doctors. It was before Tony was kidnapped. He and dad hit it off and became friends. Tony helped raise funds for several of the hospitals that dad was helping with. He bought them new machines and medical supplies. Made everything as state of the art as he could to help provide relief."

"Once Tony was back in the states, one of the first things that he did aside from shut down SI's weapon's manufacturing was contact my dad. A little bit after that dad made him mine and my sister's godfather. He's...actually pretty good at it. One wouldn't think he was so family oriented given his life style and such, but he surprised us. Since moving here, he's been keeping an eye on me without invading my privacy and such. If he's calling now- then he must have heard about the fire somehow."

"He did. He mentioned it being on the news. Probably late last night." Bucky said gently.

"Sounds about right," She muttered before asking, "You don't look too good. Are you okay?"

"M'fine, doll. Just...shocked that you and Tony know each other is all." He assured her as she frowned a little bit before asking,

"It bother's you, doesn't it?"

"_Nah_. He was a part of your life long before me. I have no reason to be upset or bothered. So try not to worry about it doll. I'll get used to it. Now, let's get you back to...the mattress so that you can lay back down for a while longer."

"It's fine. I'm awake now."

"Doll...you won't get any better if you keep worrying about me. I want you to lay back down and sleep for a while longer."

"Can't help but worry."

"I know."

"Not sleepy now."

"Don't worry. I can help with that," Bucky said with a mischievous grin. Ichigo cocked her head at him, her expression a combination of curious and questioning as he scooped her up and walked back to the center of the room and placed her back on the mattress and then asked her, "Did you know that if a dame has a really skilled lover then she can cum from just making out with him?"

"Huh?"

"Here, let me show you." He said in a husky tone, as he shifted his hold on her so that he could give her a proper hands on demonstration.

She looked at him wide eyed as his hands went to the buttons of her sleep shirt and slowly slipped them from their holes. He never at any time intended to go more then three or so button's down unless she was okay with that. But given how freaked out she looked, he doubted very much that she was okay with more than that.

"Calm down, sweetness. And try to relax some. I'm not going to go any further than you allow. You don't want something done- you just say no. I'll back off. And if I don't, sic the evil cat on me."

She blinked up at him finding it just a little bit strange that even on his knees, he was taller than her. It took her a moment to fully register his words and frown a little bit before reaching out to snag his wrists, stilling his hands where they were and demanding to know what he was going to do.

"You never done nothing like this before." It wasn't a question, merely an observation. After all, from what little bit of her he actually knew- he'd been not only her first date but her first kiss too. So it only stood to reason that she had never done something like this before.

You couldn't have a make-out session with someone without kissing and petting. Nothing hard or heavy. His sweet girl required a delicate touch right now. So that's what she'd get.

"Do you even know what's done during make-out sessions?" He asked curiously. Ichigo frowned at him for a moment before growling in irritation.

"I'm not a child, I know what making out is."

He gave her a smirk before gently saying, "That isn't what I asked doll. I asked, Do you know what's done during a make-out session?"

"I...uh..." She floundered a little bit and then muttered something about needing to go to the bathroom and then faster than he'd ever seen anyone but Steve move before- she was up out of his grasp and across the room where she quickly grabbed her phone from the cradle and then ran for the bathroom.

Bucky sat there for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek, his broad shoulders shaking with barely contained mirth as he heard the bathroom door close behind her.

_Crazy gal_. She acted like he was going to eat her alive or something.

Then again...he'd gone little over seventy years without sex and other pleasurable past times- maybe he was going to eat her alive. He certainly felt like he could sometimes.

She just...sort of brought the devil out in him. It made him want to tease her mercilessly.

In more ways than one.

Quietly getting to his feet, he moved out of the living room and down the hallway to see what she was really up too. He'd seen her take the phone, so he could only assume that she may have called a friend or something to ask some questions.

Then again, for all he knew she'd called Tony or her cousin and one or even both were currently on their way to kick his ass.

Coming to a pause outside of the bathroom, he stood there with his head slightly tilted to the side as he easily could make out her talking to someone. A woman from the sound of it.

Hime maybe?

"What do you mean petting is involved?" He heard his girl ask in a stunned tone. "What would petting- yeah okay I'll shut up," A heartbeat or so of silence passed before he heard her speak again. "No. No. _Ew no_. Of course, I've never used those stupid toys."

His head snapped towards her bedroom door so quickly it felt as if he'd just given himself whiplash as his mind almost came screeching to a stop. Dear god- did she just say that she had toys? As in sex toys? He hadn't seen anything in her closet so he could only assume...

Jesus, kill him now.

She had sex toys in her dresser, didn't she?

All this time he was trying to respect her privacy as much as possible and he could have been checking out a possible treasure trove of _unused_ sex toys!

It damn near boggled his mind to realize just how_ innocent_ his girl was sometimes. Really it did.

"W-What do you mean? I know what sex is Hime so why are you giving me the birds and bees talk? Right...and who gave you the talk before you and Uryu... Yeah, I misled you with useless information. In my defense- I learned what I know from internet porn. I-It's...sort of disturbing how much the porn indistry is geared towards the total objectification and submission of women. Yes I know it's for men's pleasure. It's just disheartening. I mean, would it kill them to put a _guy_ on his knees for a woman in a pair of nice skin fitting leather pants?"

Bucky actually choked for a moment when he heard this.

Jesus. _No wonder she was freaking out_. He thought to himself as he decided to ask her to show him what kind of porn she'd seen so that he could counter it's effects on her fears and concerns regarding sex.

Deciding that he'd let this foolishness go on long enough, he reached out and grasped the knob and turned it and then slowly pushed the door open.

Ichigo had her back to him. And with her head down like it was, she couldn't see him as he came up behind her and wrapped one arm around her and gently plucked the phone from her grasp and placed it to his ear and told whoever she had been speaking to that he had this.

He heard a gleeful sounding, "Have fun!" And then hung up the phone and laid it aside on the counter.

After which he turned his head to look at Ichigo. His sweet girl looked absolutely mortified. So much so that she attempted to hide her face against his arm. It didn't work. But he'd give her an A for effort though.

"Baby doll-"

"You heard. You heard everything." It wasn't an accusation. Hell, she didn't even sound pissed about his little eavesdropping habit. Just...a little bit panicked and embarrassed.

It was cute. Tooth rottingly so.

Come to think of it...could super soldiers get diabetes? Cause if so- he just got it.

He merely hummed in confirmation of her suspicions and watched her turn that same lovely shade of pink that he'd seen at least a dozen times before and carefully scooped her up in his arms and walked back to the living room. He had a sweet girl to put back to bed after all.


	12. Chapter 12

**Bet you guys thought I'd be giving you a lemon already...**

**I'm kind of unsure about this chap but I hope that it turned out well.**

* * *

A little while later-

Bucky lay on his back on the mattress with his girl straddling his hips. Her shirt completely unbuttoned exposing every inch of skin on her chest and torso. Skin that he'd tasted and marked with his mouth and teeth and tongue. Her lips kiss bruised and swollen- deepening the already lovely shade of pale pink to a ripe berry red. Her cheeks were flushed, her long hair was tousled, her eyes glazed over.

Ichigo looked _divine_ like this.

Almost like a goddess fallen from grace.

Everything about her- no matter how innocent- at this moment practically screamed sensuality to him. It was such a potent and heady thought, that it went straight to his groin.

Ichigo had been on top of him for a little while now. Tentatively exploring his body with sweet and gentle caresses that left him feeling more excited than he probably should have been. And in-between those sweet and gentle touches, she would rock herself against the cradle of his hips.

Rubbing against the not-so-subtle bulge in his pants in a way that almost left him whimpering and begging for more even though he'd yet to completely send her over the edge just yet like he'd promised. He knew that he wouldn't be able to hang on for much longer if she kept this up.

For fuck's sake, he was an old man who'd been denied things like this for over seventy years!

He was _pitiful_ and touch starved, and was so damn close to cumming in his pants that he was caught between just letting it happen and removing her from him so that he could keep his word.

He wanted this to be good for her, more so than him.

But she was easily tossing his plans out the window and it was fucking tying him up in knots because part of him was sort of dreading the embarrassment of _not_ doing what he'd said he would and making her cum for him.

Feeling her lean down so that she could give him another drugging kiss, Bucky let out a soft growl that quickly turned to a moan as his hands came up and grabbed her.

One resting lightly on her upper thigh and his other tangling in her soft hair, keeping her lips firmly against his own as he rolled them over so that he was on top of her.

Taking control of the kiss, he reveled in small whimper/whine that escaped her throat as he pulled back a little bit to ask her if she was ready to end this. She gave him a sexy half lidded look and reached up to tangle her slender fingers in his long hair as he lifted both of her legs so that she could wrap them around his waist.

The friction that it would help cause would be better to end the _both_ of their miseries before their heads exploded or something.

He let her pull him down some by his hair before then quickly grabbing both of her wrists and pinning them. The move must have startled her a little bit, she made a funny little strained sound and her eyes went wide as he gave her a wicked smile and then leaned down to tease the sensitive places on her throat that he'd found earlier.

"B-Buck-y..." She gasped as she felt his mouth move against her skin.

She really, _really_ liked this. Bucky thought, practically purring in satisfaction with every breathy gasp and sweet sounding moan that he elicited from her.

And he liked it too. Partially because of the way she tasted- fuck, he had _never_ come across anyone that tasted quite like Ichigo did. Her kisses and her tasted like a heady mix of peaches, cinnamon, cream and vanilla. Her skin even tasted the same.

So sweet and wonderful.

He loved it so much that he sank his teeth into the little neglected spot at the juncture of neck and shoulder and nearly scrambled off of her when she let out a weirdly loud cry. Not quiet pained. Definitely pleasured...just... It startled him.

Well not just the cry itself. But sort of the fact that Ichigo came from being bitten.

Her body arched up against his own, her head fell back, her legs clamped around him so tightly that it almost hurt. And he...well he was so startled by the whole event that he completely forgot about himself.

He found the fact that Ichigo came from being bitten somewhat _fascinating_. So much so that once she finally came down from her high, he bit her again just to see if she would cum for him again.

She did.

This time he wasn't quite so startled that he missed anything. In fact he was anticipating it so that he could sit back and watch her with his keen blue-green eyes, wanting to drink in every detail so that he could remember how she looked in his arms like this.

Her soft body warm and pliant in his grasp, soft whimpers of pleasure escaping her slightly parted lips.

Completely forgetting about his own need for release, Bucky stretched out on the mattress next to her and propped himself up on his metal hand as he used his flesh one to reach out and gently trace her features. The shape of her face, her cheekbones, her nose, her eye brows and lips.

Seeing his girl like this- knowing that he'd put such a look of bliss and contentment on her lovely face... It was magical to him and pleased him to no end. Especially when he realized that Ichigo had finally conked out again.

Wrapping an arm around her, he gathered her close and was about to lean down to kiss her shoulder when that evil little fuzz ball came running up out of nowhere and reattached itself to his foot.

Bucky jerked a little bit and curled his toes as he lifted the leg that the cat had attached itself to into the air a little bit and hissed out, "If you're here to protect your mamma's virtue, where the hell were you like an hour ago?"

The cat just growled around a mouthful of his toes and kicked it's back paws as Bucky rolled his eyes and put his leg down again as Ichigo muttered sleepily,

_"Devil cat." _

Bucky grunted as tiny teeth continued to gnaw on his foot without mercy. Devil cat, indeed.

* * *

The rest of the day was fairly quiet and uneventful.

Ichigo didn't wake up again for quite some time. And when she finally did, he was in the kitchen preparing their dinner and getting her medicine laid out. She'd missed her afternoon pain med. Mainly because she'd been more than a little bit distracted and wore out.

And he wasn't sure how badly she'd be hurting once she woke up. So he wanted to make sure that he was ready for just about anything.

Upon her awakening, Ichigo rolled over onto her back underneath the mess of blankets and cats that were curled up on top of her and slowly pushed herself upright to go to the bathroom. She's sort of been wanting to go for a little while now but had been too damned tired to care until right then.

So she shuffled off, barely awake at all, and bumped into a couple of things. Which hurt enough for her to make noise when she hadn't meant to and caused Bucky to poke his head out of the kitchen to see what she was doing.

"Doll?" He called out in a curious tone as he saw her shuffling off down the hall. She paused for a moment to give him a finger wiggle to let him know that she'd heard him before she continued on her way

He didn't need to bother calling out again to let her know that dinner was almost done.

He knew that she could smell the food that he had cooked, and was practically wide awake by the time she finished up her business in the bathroom. Once she was back out of the bathroom, she managed to shuffle into the kitchen and seat herself at the island and propped her chin up in her hand so that she could watch him.

He was almost done with both the pasta salad and the potato salad.

He'd figured that since they had both more or less missed lunch, then he'd thought to make a few things to go with some of the leftovers in the fridge. That way the both of them had a nice meal and if they were still hungry after, he'd order them some Chinese or something.

Turning around once he was finished with the pasta and potato salads, he set them both on the island in front of her and then watched out of the corner of his eye as she stole a couple of pieces of food from the two bowls. "Do I have to smack you're little hand like I do Stevie's, doll?" He asked in a teasing tone as Ichigo looked at him and flushed guiltily as she slowly removed her fingers from her mouth once she had sucked them clean.

"No."

"They taste okay?" He asked, wanting to know if she liked them. Her reply was to reach out and steal a few more pieces. Causing him to roll his eyes and chuckle at her as he pulled the leftovers out of the fridge and took a few minutes to heat them up and lay them out.

Of course by this time, his gal had somehow managed to sneak a couple of plates past him and had already fixed two of them and had started eating without him.

When he finally figured out what she had done, he just snorted and looked at her pointedly as she finished taking a bite of a pork chop before catching his gaze and blushing prettily and then quickly offering him the untouched second plate that she had made up.

He just smiled at her and took the plate and grabbed her hand so that he could kiss her knuckles before letting her go so that she could resume eating while he quietly tucked into his own meal.

She didn't eat more than a couple of plates full of food. And after that she grabbed some medium tupperware containers and filled them with potato and pasta salad- which she then decided to horde from him in the back of her fridge somewhere. Probably behind the huge untouched jar of dill pickles.

But left the rest of the food alone so that he could eat.

When he finally asked her if she was feeling alright, she merely told him to finish the rest of it off. He needed it more than her. She reseated herself in her previous spot once she was done hiding food, and just waited for him to finish his own meal when he reached out and placed her meds in front of her.

She stared at them blankly for a moment and then huffed, but still took them since he refused to let her go without them.

Once he was done eating, he cleaned up while she sat there and watched. He could tell that his girl was dying to do something to help him by the way that she kept pestering him about helping while he was doing the dishes. She'd even gotten up at one point and grabbed a towel to dry some of the dishes when he'd taken the towel form her and told her to go sit her little butt back down.

For all he knew her feet were still hurting pretty bad- and if they were, he didn't want her standing on them for longer than necessary.

She'd grumbled and grouched and snarked at him before finally settling into a pout and walking off. Deciding to remove herself from temptation entirely, but only after she brushed past him and gave his ass a not so subtle squeeze that had him dropping the pot that he'd been cleaning at the time and getting himself doused in soap water as she laughed at him and meandered off as he slowly recovered from the shock he'd just suffered.

Oh his girl had a wicked sense of humor.

One that he'd be remembering the next time that he decided that she couldn't help him with something.


	13. Chapter 13

Ichigo must have been feeling better the next morning. Because Bucky got the chance to sleep in until almost ten. A new record for him since he didn't usually sleep in so late. But when he finally did wake up- she wasn't next to him like she should have been.

Though he did find a note explaining her absence though.

_Bucky, _

_Sorry for not being there when you woke up this morning. To be honest I hadn't had any intention of leaving for any reason. I was comfortable. __However I got a few emails this morning. _

_One from my lawyer, one from my boss on the ghost writing site- wanting to meet in person to discuss the 'disgruntled' client that I'm suing. And I also got a message from Uryu this morning telling me that one of the people that I helped save during the fire had taken a bad turn and wasn't expected to make it. _

_He had another heart attack._

_I feel badly about that. So I've gone to see him one last time and take care of the other things. _

_I cooked you breakfast. It's in the microwave. And I have my cell phone just in case you feel the need to check up on me. I've also already taken my heart med. But the other will have to wait, just in case. Also, if I'm out past noon, I plan to pick up something for both of our lunches. Kindly do not kill Raphael. (the evil cat)_

_I will be back as soon as I can. Please don't be mad at me..._

Bucky reread the note several times before letting out a small huff of irritation. The damned silly girl. How could he be mad at her for leaving to take care of things? At least she'd left him a note telling him what was up. Most times he didn't even get that simple courtesy.

Deciding to make the best of the alone time. Bucky decided to make use of Ichigo's shower since he hadn't cleaned up since the other day and he was sort of feeling a little bit on the gross side.

Grabbing some clothing from his duffle alone with his deodorant, tooth brush and shaving razor and such, he walked to the bathroom and quietly closed the door not realizing that he had a fuzzy little stalker until he'd stripped off his shirt and turned on the water.

The second that the spray was on, he heard a loud thump and jumped a little bit before he then heard a loud panicked sounding, _**"Yeoooow!" **_And turned his head to see Raphael- evil cat- practically plastered up against the bathroom door looking as if Bucky was going to skin him alive.

Bucky just grunted at the cat before muttering, "You finally decided to make a move on me, huh little guy."

_"Yeeooooow!"_

"Yeah, I'm not buying that pitiful little-"

_"Yeoooowwwww!"_

"I'm not letting you out. I might_ drown_ you in the toilet for being a pest but I'm not letting you out," Bucky said, feeling absolutely no sympathy at all for the little black furred devil that seemed to hate him. "Come to think of it, when's the last time that you had a bath yourself?" Bucky wondered aloud, watching as the panicked cat's features quickly morphed to full blown kitty terror as Bucky gave him a predatory smirk.

_Paybacks are a bitch_. Bucky thought gleefully as he stripped out of his shirt and then grabbed the cat. If the stupid feline was going to be such a pain in his ass, he'd really give him a reason to hate him.

The moment that the cat realized his intentions, Bucky almost started laughing aloud. The damned beast's struggles and pitiful, pleading sounding meows of distress were...well, funny to him. Probably because he was a morbid person.

Even more so once he had the feline in the water and began to soap him up.

The cat hadn't stopped struggling in his grasp. His pitiful meows became sputters and coughs and the occasional hiss that damn near had Bucky wetting himself he was laughing so hard.

Finally once the soapy water had run clear and the feline was looking like a overgrown drowned rat, Bucky pulled him out of the shower and grabbed a towel to dry the little monster off.

By this time the poor thing was so freaked out that he didn't even bother to try and scratch or bite him for the stunt that he'd just pulled. Instead, once Bucky had him nice and wrapped up, the cat just lay his chin on his shoulder and made a small mewling sound that gave Bucky pause.

Maybe he'd overdone things a little bit and traumatized the little guy...

Drying Raphael off as best as he could, really the cat had some damned long fur that tended to retain water like a sponge or something. It was unbelievable. He finally set the cat on his feet on the floor and draped him in the towel just in case he wanted to curl up and sulk for a little while before he then shed the rest of his clothing and then stepped into the shower.

* * *

Ichigo was totally exhausted by the time that she'd made it to the hospital, after her meeting with her boss- the jerk had actually not only demanded that she drop her law suit against that bastard that had been threatening her and shit, but he'd gone so far as to tell her to even sleep with the guy- She still didn't know why he was poking his nose in where it didn't belong.

And frankly she didn't really care.

He wasn't her daddy, or her goddamn pimp. And even if he had been, she wouldn't be dropping anything concerning the law suit. Especially since she had a valid case of sexual harassment, coercion and a few other things.

And if he didn't like it then he could just go fuck himself.

She didn't have to work for him and earn him millions a year. She could start her own website and do her ghost writer work on there.

If he butted in one more time and told her to spread her legs for some shit head, like she was a whore- she would simply remove him from his position as CEO of his company. It might be a little bit hard to do, but she could and would do it.

Besides, she didn't appreciate him using his position as her boss to try and whore her out. Literally.

She of course had sent a recording of her conversation with him to her lawyer, just in case she needed it in the future. After all, basically demanding that she sleep with someone and threatening her job to make her do it was not only an gross abuse of power, but he would also be getting _payed_ for her to do it- which was basically prostitution.

_Stupid good for nothing son of a bitch prick._ She thought darkly. Huffing as she made her way past the hospital front desk. She went ahead to the elevator, shifting the bouquet of flowers in her hands so that she could press the button and quietly waited for the elevator to open up.

Her feet were hurting from walking around in nothing but thin panty hose and her shoes. And she didn't know for sure, but she kind of felt as if some of the worse lacerations on the soles of her feet were bleeding. They certainly felt raw and slippery.

If Uryu found out that she had hurt herself again walking around today, he'd skin her alive and then tattle on her to Bucky. Scrunching up her nose a little bit, she wondered idly why the thought of Bucky being told that she'd hurt herself again, bugged her so damn badly.

It wasn't because he intimidated or scared her or anything.

To be perfectly honest she had known since day one_ who_ and _what_ he was before she had even accepted his asking her out on a date. She may be a bit emotionally and socially stunted, but she was far from stupid. Besides, it was sort of hard _not_ to know the man who had had such a big role in American history.

Much less anything else.

He and his friend Steve, and her godfather, Tony tended to be on the news almost constantly nowadays for one reason or another.

Though she found it somewhat odd that the former Winter's Soldier had seemingly attached himself to her in a romantic sense, she couldn't deny that the man made her feel things that she'd never really felt before. Nor could she deny that he genuinely was a nice person.

Awkward, like her certainly. But genuinely _nice_ all the same.

He was a guardian and caretaker of others much like she was. So in a round about way, she sort of understood the draw that he had to her. And at the same time she didn't.

It was a little bit frustrating.

But the fact that, like called to like, tended to remain the same.

"I wonder what Rukia would think if I brought him home with me." She wondered aloud knowing that if he stuck around long enough that it would likely happen. She tended to go back to Japan every six to eight months or so unless something came up here in the city that she was actually needed for.

Which meant that her next visit home would fall around Christmas this year and she likely wouldn't be home until a little bit after New Year. This would give her time to visit with her family, catch up with old friends and go and check on the Shiba clan and make sure that Ganju hadn't burned the clan home down or something.

His sister would literally _destroy_ them both if he did.

Stepping onto the elevator once it finally opened she pressed the button for the ICU floor and then closed her eyes and took a moment to steel herself for whatever awaited her on the third floor. She could tell from where she was now that the old man's energy was _beyond_ dangerously weak.

So much so that she would just barely make it in time to say goodbye to him.

Opening her eyes slowly she sighed and depressingly wondered why she still bothered to care about people so much. It did nothing but hurt her in the long run.

She had just stepped off of the elevator when she bumped into Uryu.

He had been waiting for her from the look of things. And she knew before he even opened his mouth that it was too late. The old man was gone. She'd probably sensed some lingering traces of his spirit energy which had misled her a little bit as to the man's state.

As good as she was as a Soul Reaper, she still somewhat sucked at being able to tell some energies apart from others. Weakened life energy and weakened residual traces of spirit energy were eerily similar. The only real time that she'd been able to tell one apart from the other was when she'd practically been standing next to the person/person's involved.

Reaching out, Uryu wrapped his arms around her and just held her for a moment feeling just as saddened as she was by the loss as he told her that the old man's spirit had passed on before she had stepped off of the elevator so that she didn't need to worry about doing a con-soul for him.

She dazedly nodded her head to acknowledge his words before he then offered to drive her back home.

* * *

Bucky was sitting on the mattress with his lap full of cats, gently petting the two needy little felines. Weirdly enough, once he'd finished up his shower, he'd taken note of the sudden and drastic change in Raphael's personality.

He didn't know what to make of the sudden bought of affection that the cat was showing him. All he knew was that he was pretty damn cuddly once one got pasted the whole 'hate issue'.

He had thought that Ichigo might call around eleven or so just to check in with him, but she hadn't and as much as he was liking the affection of her little beasts, he was starting to get worried since it was almost one thirty and she hadn't called nor returned just yet.

He was about to pull out his cell and call her to see if she was okay when the apartment door swung open, suddenly startling him and the cats.

Turning his head, he was a mite surprised to see Uryu standing there with a slightly panicked look on his face. Quickly brushing the cats aside, Bucky stood up and went to see what was wrong when he saw the man kneel down and grasp something.

A hand.

Ichigo's hand.

Rushing over to the door, Bucky peeked out, his eyes wide as he took in his girl's appearance. _"What the fu-"_ He started to say when Uryu cut him off in a grim tone.

"I think she's sort of in shock." His expression looked worried as Bucky pushed him aside and quickly gathered his sweet girl up in his arms and then stood back up and carried her into the apartment, not bothering to see if her cousin was following him or not.

He knew that he was.

"Lay her on the mattress." Uryu instructed him. Bucky didn't need to be told twice. He did as he was told to do but with one little change, he sat himself down with her in his arms and then settled her in his lap and then brushed aside her bangs to get a better look at her face and almost snarled at her cousin.

"What the hell happened?" Bucky growled as he shifted his hold on Ichigo a little bit so that she was resting in a more comfortable position against his chest.

"She's...had a rough day. I don't know everything but the basic gist of what she did manage to tell me makes me very furious."

"So spill. Who's ass do I have to kick?" Bucky demanded. Uryu merely gave him a peculiar look, a feral smile crossing his face before he said,

"I'll tell you if you. But you aren't going to like it anymore than I do."

"Figured as much." Bucky muttered as he waited for Uryu to tell him stuff. And he was right. He didn't like what he heard. Not one little bit.

Once Uryu was finished explaining everything that he was aware of he then ordered a dozen or so pizza's for them both for later and then told Bucky that he needed to go back to work. And to call him if Ichigo didn't come out of her episode within a specific timeframe and he would come back immediately.

Bucky merely nodded his head in understanding and watched the man hesitantly leave.

Once he was gone Bucky looked back down at his girl and hugged her tightly, pressing kisses against her temple and forehead as he told her that everything would be okay over and over again until his throat felt raw. It was almost ah hour before Ichigo responded in any way to his presence, which was a relief really.

When she started to become more aware of him and where she was, he finally felt okay-ish enough to try laying her down so that he could slip her shoes off and stuff.

He _did_ feel more than a little bit pissed about the bottoms of her feet being bloody messes and about her being in pain from them- which he _knew_ that she had to be if the way that she jerked and tried to stifle a yelp behind her hand was any indication at all.

Once he had her shoes off, he then worked on her panty hose, feeling a little bit weird about pulling them off of her when she was wearing them under some leggings. But he did it anyways, even if she did hiss and jerk from time to time as he finally pulled the hose away from her feet before laying them and her leggings aside.

The moment that he was done with that, he went and grabbed some of her medical supplies from the bathroom. Rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, bandages, the numbing anti biotic cream- and then brought them all to the living room and then proceeded to clean, rub some of the cream onto her feet, and then bandage them again.

When he finally finished with that, he grabbed the used cotton balls and threw them away before then grabbing her some water and one of her pain meds. A half of one wasn't going to cut it this time. So she'd just have to take a whole one.

He knew that she likely wouldn't want it- or even like it. But he wasn't going to fight her on this. Not this time. She needed it and she was going to take the damn thing even if he had to force it down her throat.

Returning to the living room with both things in hand, he noted that his girl was curled up on her side, staring blankly ahead. Kneeling down next to her, he gently placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her over.

She blinked owlishly up at him as he gave her a small, thin lipped smile and held the water and the pill out. He expected her to push the hand with the pill away, instead she grabbed it out of his hand and downed the water in one gulp and then laid back down with a soft whine.

"Doll?"

"I'm okay, Bucky." Her voice was strained, pain laced. And they both knew that that was a lie. But he didn't bother arguing or calling her on it. Instead he stretched out next to her on the mattress and just pulled her into his arms and held her.

By the time the pizza's that her cousin had ordered for them arrived, Ichigo had turned over so that she was facing him and laid her head on his shoulder and just sighed. It was a sad sounding sigh. But at least it was something. Bucky kissed the top of her head and told her that he'd be back in a moment as he slowly withdrew from her, pausing only briefly when she let out another more distressed sound, before then going to grab their food.

Thankfully it was already payed for and all he had to do was tip the delivery guy.

Once that was done he laid the pizzas on her kitchen counter and took a few minutes to fix them both a plate. Making sure that Ichigo's was loaded down with all kinds of goodies ranging from supreme, to meat lovers, to plain cheese and veggie. Before he then dug around in her cabinets and somehow managed to find her secret stash of cookies and brownies and grabbed a few that he then placed on her plate along with the rest of the food and then quickly picked up both plates and stopped by the fridge to grab them both some pop.

He'd noticed that when she drank soda she tended to favor grape flavored Crush. So that's what he grabbed for her. Whereas he grabbed himself a Pepsi before then making his way back into the living room and seated himself next to her.

"Here doll. You probably didn't eat this morning before you left, so you need to try and eat as much of this as possible or that pill will make you sick." He said in a soft tone as he laid the plate next to her. She just stared at it for a moment and then picked up a piece and without bothering to even sit up, started munching away on it.

He snorted and shook his head, but was glad that she was listening to him. Even though he could sense her reluctance.

He tucked into his own meal, though he carefully monitored how much of the food Ichigo managed to eat before finally deciding that she was done. Out of all of the food that he'd put on her plate, she'd eaten almost the whole dozen slices plus the cookies and one of the brownies. Leaving the other two for him.

He polished them off quickly and then grabbed both of their plates- and his opened drink- and took them into the kitchen and put the dishes in the sink and quickly finished off his pop and threw away the can and then went back into the living room and stretched back out beside Ichigo.

"You wanna talk about it yet doll?" He asked in a coaxing tone. She shook her head no and he thinned his lips for a moment and then asked as he picked up the TV remote and dangled it in front of her, "Do you wanna watch JTV and do some over the phone shopping?"

"No." She said in a small tone that tugged at his heartstrings. He thinned his lips again in displeasure and gently set the remote aside and then reached out and pulled her against him and tucked her in tight against his torso. Ichigo put her arms around him without needing any prompting, and buried her face against his chest.

The pill finally kicked in a little while later and Ichigo spent a few minutes just sort of...watching her fingers? He knew that giving her a whole pain pill would knock her for a doozy, but he hadn't realized just how much of one until she lay there watching her fingers before she finally fell asleep.

The cats inevitably joined them both a short while later. Raphael and his sister both curled up against their momma's back and just lay there while Bucky took a few moments to shift his hold on his girl so that he could leave the room and make a few phone calls.

He needed someone to destroy her boss. And wanted to do some checking on the elderly man, that had passed earlier today, family. He wanted to see if the man's family would need help with funeral expenses.

He may not be able to do much for his girl right now because she was so depressed over the events of the day. But he could at least do this much and take care of things for her.

The first person that he called was Tony. The man had been shocked beyond belief that Bucky was dating his goddaughter, and then outraged and he mentioned something about giving him a shovel talk later on. But he'd also said that the kid could do far, _far_ worse than him as far as boyfriends went.

Which was a compliment of sorts that Bucky didn't really know how to respond too.

So once he was done telling Bucky all the ways he could make him disappear from earth and get away with it- he finally asked him what he needed. Bucky told him about the elderly guy that died. And how Ichigo seemed to have had a really, really bad episode of some kind and completely shut down.

Tony had been rattled. Which was...peculiar. But if the man knew Ichigo half as well as he thought, then maybe he knew a little bit more about her episodes than Bucky himself did.

Tony had practically talked his ear off for the better part of almost an hour as he looked up the old man and checked his families finances and shit.

The man was a Vet. who had served in the early years of the Vietnam war. And suffered injuries from a grenade and a fire. He was about a hundred, really. Or so Tony had said.

His wife and kids were all dead. He had grandkids and great grandkids. His grandkids had tried to put him in a nursing home a few years back and had wanted him to sign papers. Neither Bucky nor Tony were all that sure that the papers hadn't been some kind of Will that would have granted some of the more unsavory of the man's kin access to his money and other things.

He had two great grandkids that the man had been putting money back for. Both were young right now. But once they turned eighteen they would be able to get the money that he'd taken care to put back for them.

He had no one who would care enough to plan his funeral at this point. Nor did he have enough money to have a decent burial.

Once Tony told Bucky this, he glanced over at Ichigo and then told Tony to contact whoever he needed to contact. He was going to plan and pay for the guy to have a nice military funeral. Tony had told him he'd do as he said, just as long as he looked after Ichigo and kept her out of trouble.

Apparently his sweet girl was a trouble magnet.

Bucky would have laughed at this if he'd been told the same day of their first date. But since then...well, he had sort of noticed that his girl tended to get herself into some shit. She probably didn't mean too. But just like Stevie before the super serum- it happened anyways.

Once he got off of the phone with Tony, Bucky called up Steve, Nat and Clint and told them what was up with his girl's boss.

Naturally by the time he got off of the phone with them, they were totally on board with making the man's life utterly miserable. And they would be doing so in very public ways.


	14. Chapter 14

Several hours later, Bucky was stretched out beside his gal waiting for her to awaken. She'd been tossing and turning and crying for the past hour or so because the pain med had finally wore off and her feet were hurting like a mother fucker. And while he sort of admired her dedication to sleep, she really needed to wake up and let him give her another pain med before she got any worse.

However Ichigo didn't seem to be anywhere near waking up. Which was...concerning to say the least. Especially since normal people didn't tend to be able to ignore physical suffering enough to be able to sleep by any means. Finally after waiting a few minutes longer for her to stir and getting nowhere fast, Bucky finally placed his hand against her cheek and gently tried to wake her.

"Doll? Doll? Hey, you need to wake up." He said as he ran his thumb along the curve of her cheek in what he hoped was a soothing manner. She stirred enough to open her eyes for a second. But wound up closing them again since she wasn't actually awake.

Making a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, Bucky then slipped an arm underneath her shoulders and tugged her up in an sitting position and tried again.

He hadn't noticed before now, but Ichigo felt warmer than normal. Far warmer than normal if he wasn't mistaken. Not only that but her skin was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her hair and clothing were almost soaked by it.

Muttering a curse under his breath, Bucky laid her back down and then went and grabbed the phone and used the caller ID to find her cousin's number and placed a quick call.

Uryu was helpful, sort of.

He told him that the first thing to do was to find the thermometer and see what her temp was. If she was running a semi low grade fever then she should just sleep it off. But if her temp was higher than one hundred and three then he needed to bring her to the hospital.

_Immediately. _

Finding the thermometer, Bucky pulled it form it's protective plastic casing and turned it on and then went and placed it in Ichigo's mouth, underneath her tongue and used his hand to keep her mouth closed around it for as accurate a reading as possible.

Once the thing beeped and he pulled it out of her mouth and looked at the number on display, he swore again and then repicked up the phone and told Uryu that he'd be there as soon as possible.

Uryu told him which hospital to bring her to and then told him to call someone with a car. It would be better in the long run. Bucky found that he couldn't exactly disagree with the man there, and then after telling him that he'd be there as soon as possible- he called Tony.

Luckily for him, Stark was on another of his usual late night lab benge's. So he was wide awake when he got the call, though he was more than a little bit rattled when he found out just why Bucky was calling in the first place. Tony told him to wrap his gal up in a blanket and get his ass outside.

A car would be there to pick them up and take them where they needed to go pronto. Of course, what he didn't say was that he'd be waiting in the car when it pulled up barely fifteen minutes later.

The surprise of seeing the billionaire himself in the back seat when the door opened, nearly causing him to drop Ichigo. Thankfully he had some pretty good reflexes from being the Winter Soldier for the past seventy years- so he managed to catch her again before she actually fell and hit something and got hurt.

But the look that Stark was currently giving him didn't bode well for him. And he _knew_ that he was in for an earful as soon as they were totally alone.

"Get in Barnes." The man said as he carefully took his gal from him and then slid himself further into the car so that he could get in. Bucky did as he was told, but he didn't have to like it.

Once the door was shut and the vehicle started moving again, Bucky heard Stark ask what had happened to make Ichigo so sick. To be honest, Bucky had a few suspicions as to the cause. But didn't care to voice them at the moment. He was too worried that his gal was going to lose a leg or something.

Tony seemed to understand, because he dropped the subject fairly quickly and merely said as if he were trying to comfort him, "She'll be okay Barnes. Our girl is tougher than she looks."

Bucky turned his head to look at him. He wanted to snap at him because there was no damned way that he could actually know that for sure, but he wound up biting his tongue instead. Especially after seeing the man's expression. He wasn't scared. He was just a little bit upset. Almost resigned.

But he wasn't scared.

That fact sort of made Bucky feel a little bit better. Well, not _totally_, especially since he likely wasn't going to hear the end of it from Uryu, Hime and Steve already as it was. But it did make him feel a little bit better about the situation.

Barely twenty minutes later, their car pulled up to the ER where Uryu was waiting for them with a gurney and a whole team of nurses ready to take care of Ichigo.

Bucky slid himself out of the car and moved aside for a moment or so, so that Tony could climb out. And stepped forward again to take Ichigo from him and make it easier for him to get out. Once that was done, he watched as Tony moved the blanket his sweet girl was wrapped in, aside for a moment so that he could press a kiss to her forehead and mutter something barely audible before he moved out of the way.

As her cousin pushed the gurney over and the man and the nurses practically stole her from Bucky's arms and laid her on the make shift bed and began to check her vitals and attach an IV to her the crook of her good arm before Uryu told them to go ahead and take her.

He'd follow them in a second.

Once they were on their way inside, Uryu turned his attention to Bucky and walked over to him. Bucky tensed up expecting a good punch to the face or something for not taking better care of his girl, but instead the man simply put a hand on his shoulder and said softly, "You did good. Her vitals are still stable, so the only thing that concerns me at this point is how bad the possible infection has become and whether or not she'll respond right away to antibiotics. Above all things, we have to keep the infection from spreading to her heart. So you did good. Let me and my team worry about everything else from here. You just stick close by in case she wakes up and wants you with her, okay."

Bucky blinked at him, his kind and comforting words causing his eyes to burn a little bit in a way that was familiar to how he usual felt when he was about to start bawling his eyes out.

He felt wholly unworthy of the man's kindness. Like he had failed in the most fundamental way.

He was supposed to take care of her and keep her from doing anything that could push back her healing process. And he had failed at that. He'd _failed_ her. Guilt ate away at him and he didn't know what he should do. He felt torn. He didn't feel right about being there despite his feelings for Ichigo. But at the same time, leaving her right now would be unforgivable.

Wouldn't it?

He was so lost in his thoughts that he never realized that Uryu had left. He didn't even realize that Tony was standing next to him on his cell, talking to someone. Though he was vaguely aware of bits and pieces of his conversation.

"Steve...something happened...Bucky's girl...hospital... He isn't doing too good..."


End file.
